


Say You Love Me

by inbetweenwords



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-18 00:29:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 49,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5891059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inbetweenwords/pseuds/inbetweenwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Have you ever thought that your age don’t represent you? That your soul is trapped in a foreign body? That was how Kara Rogers felt. At seventeen, she was the most sensible and mature girl in her class. She liked to read, to listen to music and to spend time with his family. But above all, she loved spending time with Bucky Barnes, her father’s best friend.</p><p>Throughout the years, Bucky had been different things to Kara: when she was just a baby, he had been her nanny when her parents had wanted to go out on a date; when she was a child, he had been her playmate; when she had begun to enter the teenager phase, he had been her confidant. And now, Kara needed him to be something more.</p><p>But if there was something Kara couldn’t get rid off in that life was her age and the label of Captain America’s daughter. And her life seemed to want to disappoint her father in all forms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

 

_“Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a something that’s meant to come.”_

 

* * *

 

When the light rays began to filter through the curtains, Kara opened her eyes and blinked repeatedly. She stretched under the covers and stayed that way for several minutes, waiting for the nerves to take over her body, but they didn’t. Her classmates had been talking about the graduation since May had begun: what they would wear, what makeup they were going to put on their faces, who would look at them… But above all, how nervous they would be on that big day.

The big day had arrived and Kara didn’t feel nervous at all. She was rather overwhelmed by the fact that her father was going to be there. She felt bad thinking that way because she loved her father but being Captain America’s daughter wasn’t as easy as everyone thought. Kara had been observed throughout her life by the people around her, by the people she didn’t even know, by the press and even by her classmates. Kara had never said anything to her parents because she knew it would create a conflict in her father and she knew that if Steve Rogers hadn’t hung up his shield in all those years was because he loved being Captain America.

When she entered the kitchen, she found her mother sat on the kitchen island, holding a Jane Austen book in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. Anna looked up when she heard footsteps and a tender smiled formed on her lips when she discovered it was her daughter. Kara couldn’t help but smile too. Her mother was a breath of fresh air; she was the only person who put normality in her life. Anna Mitchell was an ordinary woman, who had made Steve Rogers fall in love with her during a mission in which she had been involved by accident.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” she greeted as she put the book on the counter. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes,” she smiled. Kara searched through the cupboards until she found a bag of muffins. She poured some milk into a cup and sat in front of her mother, who was looking at her, with a smile still on her lips. “What’s up?” she asked confused.

“It saddens me that you get older.”

Kara rolled her eyes as she laughed. She calmly ate her breakfast while her mother resumed the reading. After a few minutes in silence, Anna put the book on the counter again and asked her daughter what kind of hairstyle she wanted to wear to the graduation. Kara shrugged and allowed her to pick for her. When she saw the smile and the sparkle of excitement in her mother’s eyes, she smiled. She was like that, she always did everything to please others, even if that meant doing things she didn’t want. That wasn’t the situation though, because she didn’t mind wearing straight hair, curly or upsweep. However, it had happened when she had realized that it was impossible for her father to miss her graduation.

“How could your father not go, Kara?” her mother had asked with a frown.

Kara had failed to answer, because the truth was that there wasn’t a correct answer, so she shook her head and said it had been a misunderstanding. But it wasn’t, because Kara didn’t want her father to go to her graduation.

The reason was simple; her father was always the center of attention, wanted it or not. And if someone approached Kara was to please her father. She knew all the people,  at some point in her life, had talked to her was because they wanted something from Captain America, not her. It was for that reason that she didn’t saw her classmates as friends. It was for that reason most of the time she hated the label of _Captain America’s daughter_.

She had managed to convince Stark, Barton, Wilson and Romanoff not to go to the graduation. They considered her part of the family, so they requested it many times but everytime Kara had told them it would be boring and that there wasn’t a reason for them to be there when the banquet would be held at the Avengers base. It would be also private, although Tony had told Kara that she could bring her friends over. But what friends was going to take there? She didn’t have friends. At least, not there.

The only one who would go to the graduation, besides her father, was Bucky Barnes. The reasons were simple too; there was no way that Bucky could miss an event of that caliber and there was no way that Kara would let Bucky miss something like that.

James Buchanan Barnes was Kara’s godfather. Throughout her life, he had gone from being her godfather and babysitter when Steve and Anna needed him, to her friend. No one could think that a guy around his thirties could be a real friend to a girl of seventeen, but they were really friends. Kara had found in him a confidant, the best of friends, and when she had a problem, she would rather go to him than her own parents. Her parents had finally accepted that Bucky was Kara’s mentor. Not that they had more options, but of all their friends, they thought Bucky was the best choice. He was the only one who knew her as anyone.

Kara stopped moving the spoon that was inside the cup of milk and looked at her mother with eyes wide open as she remembered one thing.

“Mom, dad won’t go the graduation with his official uniform, right?” she asked insecure.

She knew it sounded stupid but she really knew her father. She knew he would be unable to attend to the ceremony with Captain America’s uniform, but the military was something else. Anna laughed, shook her head and promised her there was no reason to worry about. Kara didn’t know how was to suddenly wake up in a completely unknown world and realize that you had lost about seventy years of your life. She imagined it had to be difficult but after eighteen years, Steve Rogers should have been become accustomed. Bucky was different, he was more comfortable on the XXI century and he fit in quite well.

Used to wear pants and blouses, Kara felt strange wrapped in that blue navy dress. With most of her back exposed, the dress clung to her body, except for the skirt, that gave some volume to the dress. Her hair was pulled back in a braided bun. As her mother promised, her father appeared with black jeans and a blue shirt that emphasized the color of his eyes. He kissed her forehead and told her she was beautiful. Kara smiled and thanked him for the compliment. She felt the eyes of her classmates in her, so she excused herself and walked away, telling her parents that she would see them after the graduation.

She couldn’t go far because suddenly someone grabbed her hand and spun her on her heels. In front of her, Bucky Barnes was standing with a big smile, a black shirt and skinny jeans. Kara’s chest swelled, leaving her out of breath for a few seconds. Her eyes were unable to leave his face, which seemed to had been taken from an art exhibition.  

“Sergeant,” she finally managed to say. Her mouth had gone dry and her heart was beating at full speed, trying to escape her chest.

“Miss Rogers,” he greeted widening his smile. “You look stunning.” he confessed. “And I’m super proud of you, munchkin.”

Kara’s cheeks blushed slightly as she smiled gently. Behind Bucky’s shoulder, she saw a gorgeous blonde woman talking to her parents. Kara couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Bucky followed the direction of her gaze and laughed loudly when he saw who was she looking. Throughout the years, she got used to see Bucky with different women. They didn’t last more than two days and he didn’t seem to want to change that. For him, love was a silly thing but Kara thought he said that because he didn’t find the right woman. Kara didn’t care too much about that, because every day it passed without the _right_ woman, was a small victory for her.

Kara let go of his hand, catching his attention again. “With your permission Sergeant, they’re waiting for me.”

“Miss,” he said faking a bow. Kara rolled her eyes again as she tried not so smile. She went to where her classmates were, laughing, with the feeling that Bucky’s blue eyes were following her.

The graduation ceremony was a boring act. Kara turned her head once in awhile, watching her parents. Bucky and Steve looked like two kids, hitting each other while her mom tried to stop them. That made Kara smile. But the worst moment came when she was called to pick up the title and they made sure to point out in front of everyone who she was, the _daughter of Captain America_. Kara forced a smile and greeted those who were present, who were looking anxiously for his father, probably hoping to talk to him after the ceremony.

Kara tried to leave that place in a hurry but her mother tried to convince her to take some pictures with her classmates and she finally accepted because she didn’t want to disappoint her. They all took the opportunity to talk to Steve and Bucky, who proudly accepted all the compliments of the American citizens.

When Kara got to the car, she made an effort to keep the tears inside her eyes. She felt stupid because that wasn’t the attitude of a girl who was supposed to be an adult in a just a few months. But it was the way she felt when she was around her father. She couldn’t be Kara; she was Kara Rogers, Captain America’s daughter, and there was nothing in the world that made her feel smaller and insignificant than that.

And if that wasn’t enough, her parents took the opportunity to talk about colleges on their way to the Avengers base. Kara bit her lower lip and looked through the window, trying to think of something else. She didn’t know if she wanted to continue studying. She wasn’t a bad student; she was quite good. But there was nothing good enough that called her attention and she didn’t want to study some degree just for the fact of having an college title. But that was something her parents didn’t understand. After high school, came college and after college, a job. Kara had been born with an organized life and it seemed she couldn’t change the course without disappointing their parents. And to Kara, disappointing her parents wasn’t in her plans. So she nodded and accepted everything that came to her.

The banquet at the Avengers base was great. Tony and Pepper had hired a caterer with all the things Kara liked and, for the first time since she had woken up, Kara felt really good. The only ones who were missing were Thor, Jane and their twin daughters Eyra and Astrid, who were Kara’s best friends. But she assumed that more important things were happening in Asgard than a simply graduation in Earth. And Bruce was missing too, for the safety of the planet, he was at an unknown location.

After a couple of hours eating and talking, Jarvis, Tony Stark’s information system, indicated Kara that Evan Stark, the eldest and only son of Tony and Pepper, was calling her.

“In the first room, you can talk with Evan there,” Pepper said pointing at the hall.

Kara laughed when she saw Evan’s face appear on the screen. Exactly one year ago, Evan had gone to Europe to study and since then, Kara hadn’t seen him. The relationship she had with him was, if not, curious. Kara knew Evan liked her, but she always ignored it in front of him. Not that she didn’t like Evan, she actually thought he was a very handsome and funny, like his father, but in her heart, that didn’t seem to be enough.

Sat in front of what she supposed it was a computer, Evan was looking at the camera with his blue eyes and an endless smile. His dark, slightly tousled hair, gave him a casual look. He was really gorgeous and it surprised her he didn’t have a girlfriend.

“Congratulations, you survived high school,” he teased, making her laugh. “How are you? I haven’t heard from you in a long time.”

The two of them engaged in a long and pleasant conversation in which they explained the latest adventures they had lived. Evan had many more stories to tell than Kara and she felt a bit jealous of him. Evan was also conditioned by the name he was wearing, but he had managed to get rid of the label of _Tony Stark’s son_ and he had begun to create his own life. He did what he wanted when he wanted and he was happy with his actions. He had gone to Europe to study with the excuse he needed to leave New York, and there he had built a new life. He had proposed to Kara to go with him a thousand times, but her answer was always the same: “There are many things that tie me here.”

Kara told him everything that happened at the graduation, how she felt when her parents had insisted with the whole college thing. Evan encouraged her to choose her own way, to do what she believed it was right.

“I can’t do it,” she admitted.

“Yes you can. Do whatever you have to do, Kara. You can’t please everyone, it’s impossible.” he finally said before ending the call.

She thought about what Evan had told her while she returned to the room where everyone was, wondering if she could really do what she wanted without thinking about other’s feelings.

Before crossing the doors that led to the main hall, Kara saw Bucky hugging his one-night stand, kissing her with longing. They laughed between each kiss, like two teenagers in love. Her feet stopped instantly and a knot formed in her throat. It wasn’t the first time she saw Bucky in the arms of a woman, nor it was the first time she saw him kissing someone. But that was the straw that broke the camel. It was what broke her down.

Kara turned around, took the elevator and went to the terrace as tears of sadness, anger, worry and exhaustion fell down her cheeks. There was no point in lying or denying the obvious, Kara was in love with Bucky Barnes, his father’s best friend. As much as she tried to fight against her feelings, James Buchanan Barnes was her everything.

She had always kept a lid on her feelings, because she perfectly knew what she felt was wrong in every single way. But every time it was harder to behave as a sensible and mature girl in front of him; every time it was harder to hide what she felt. As she grew older, her need for him  grew too. Kara needed Bucky as something else and she knew that was impossible. Maybe Kara didn’t carry the label of _Captain America’s daughter_ for Bucky, but she carried the label _daughter of his best friend_ , and if she couldn’t do anything to get rid of the first label, she would carry the second with her to the grave.

“It’s cold up here,” a voice behind her said. Kara didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.

“I’m fine,” she said wiping the tears with her hands.

“I understand you trying to lie to others but me, Kara? Come on, I’m an expert in speech patterns and body language.” Natasha said.

Kara sighed loudly as she turned around and faced her. “What do you want, Natasha?”

Kara and Natasha get along well. In fact, they get along really well. But sometimes, she made Kara really nervous because it was impossible to hide anything from her. Natasha knew she was in love with Bucky, she had discovered before Kara had accepted her feelings. She didn’t gave her a lecture or told her to forget him as Kara thought she would do. She just told her to be careful.

“I’m the last person who wants to tell you what to do, Kara” she confessed. “But I’ve been watching you for a while now and I think you need someone to remove the blindfold from your eyes," she stopped talking for a few seconds before continuing. “You’re a pretty, smart and wonderful girl, but you’re more concerned to not disappoint others than live your life. I know it may seem hard, and seeing others suffer for you… It’s complicated. I know, believe me. But Kara, you can’t pretend to be someone you’re not your whole life. Because it’s really tiring. Live your life and stop pleasing others,” she pointed out. “Don’t forget your life deserves a happy ending too.”

Natasha stared at Kara for a few seconds, waiting for her to say something but when Kara lowered her head and fixed her eyes to the floor, she turned around and left. Her work was done. What Kara did with what she told her was it was up to her.

Kara pondered on Natasha’s words and she understood that she was right. She was living a life that wasn’t hers. But she remained unable to disappoint everyone in order to get what she wanted. And she didn’t exactly knew what it was.

“It’s okay not to know what to do, Kara. There are a lot of people who need some time to figure out what is their true purpose on life,” Evan had told her once.

Maybe Evan was right and she needed some time to figure out what she wanted to do with her life.

When she felt a bit more peaceful, Kara went inside the building. As she went down with the elevator, she promised herself to talk to Natasha and clarify what had happened. She would say she was fine, that she was happy with what she had. Although it wasn’t true, she needed Natasha to believe it. She knew that woman really well and she was really impulsive, she couldn’t let her tell her parents how miserable she really was. She may not believe her, but she had to try it.

On the way to the main hall, Kara heard strange noises. She glanced at each side of the corridor, trying to find out the source. The noises increased; metallic sounds, like chains banging against another metal. She concentrated and discovered that it was coming from the last room, opposite direction where she was standing.

She knew she could ignore it and go find her father, who was more prepared than her to do those kind of things. But curiosity won the battle. As she approached the room, she heard a woman's saying: “If you weren’t so concerned to get into anyone’s pants, you would have realized what I really wanted.”

“Forgive me, but I’ve dated girls with really strange kinks”.

Kara recognized the voice instantly. It was Bucky. She quickened her step until she heard a thud, like something hitting something solid.

“Bitch”, he muttered. “Who the fuck are you? What do you want?”, he half-yelled.

“I want to make an statement”.

Kara heard the sound that made a gun when you removed the safety. She had heard it so many times. She had been in the same room as Bucky when he cleaned his guns. Whoever that was in that room with him, was going to kill him. Kara had to stop wasting time and help Bucky right away.

She didn’t think about the consequences, what would happen if her parents found out what she was going to do. She just did it. She opened the door with force, getting Bucky to turn his head and look at her with terror in his eyes. The woman standing in front of him was his date and she was holding a gun that was larger than her own hands.

She turned the barrel, pointing at Kara and she shot without hesitation. Kara felt a strong chest oppression  while a heartbreaking scream left Bucky’s throat. Her body collapsed into the ground, hitting her head on the way down. She tried to keep her eyes open but her eyelids were fighting harder than ever to close.

Finally, she let them win and closed her eyes feeling an infinite peace running over her body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!
> 
> Some things are based in what happened in Marvel movies/comics, but not everything. I needed to make some changes for this story to make sense. The only thing you need to know is that Steve and Bucky disappeared together, at the same time, and they found them together. Bucky isn’t the Winter Soldier at the beginning of the story, he’s just Steve Roger’s best friend.
> 
> Another thing, I didn’t want to put a name on the girl because I enjoy reading stories with the Reader as a protagonist but I needed to write some name while I wrote the story so I named her Kara.
> 
> I also wanted to let you know that english isn’t my native tongue so there would be mistakes. I’m sorry for that but I wanted to try and translate this story for you all.
> 
> And thank you very much for reading this. It means the world to me.


	2. Two

 

“It’s okay to be angry. It’s never okay to be cruel.”

 

* * *

 

Kara woke up with the taste of blood in her mouth. She clicked her tongue several times, trying to get rid of the taste. She opened her eyes but instantly closed them because of the amount of light that was in the room. She felt slightly disoriented and her head hurt like hell.

When her eyes got used to the light, Kara blinked several times and, without moving her head, she looked around. She wasn’t in her room and because the walls were white and the whole room smelled like disinfectant, she imagined she was in a hospital.

Images of what had happened began to appear in her mind, overwhelming her. She tried to move her arms, but an unbearable pain ran through her body, making her grumble.

“Kara?” she heard someone say. Kara closed her eyes at the voice; it was punching her head. “Kara, honey?” It was his father. She felt him grabbing her hand. “Are you there?”

“Barely,” she said hoarsely. It took her several seconds to speak again. “Where’s Bucky?”

She didn’t want to hear another answer that wasn’t the one saying he was fine. He had to be okay. She _needed_ him to be okay.

“Kara, calm down” Steve said squeezing her hand, he already knew what she was thinking. “He’s okay. Bucky is okay.”

Gradually, the beating of her heart went back to its normal rhythm. But, she didn’t understand why Bucky wasn’t there. She remembered that when she had surgery when she was three years old, Bucky waited in her room until her little body awakened from the anesthesia. He didn’t leave the room until he exchanged some words with the sleepy three year old Kara.

“Where’s he?”

It may not have been the most important question at the time but, although she believed in her father's words, she needed to see him with her own eyes.

“He’s with Fury going over what happened last night.”

Kara nodded.

“Are you mad at me?”

“Yes I am. And we are going to talk about it as soon as you get your ass out of that bed. But now, I’m mostly happy because you’re alive,” he pointed out with half a smile in his mouth. But Kara didn’t smile, she wasn’t feeling like smiling.

“I did what I had to do, dad” she said, not wanting to wait until she was out of the hospital. “That woman was going to kill Bucky and I just… Reacted,” And she felt pretty good doing it too, like she finally had found something in the world that really filled her. She felt important, useful. But she knew her father didn’t want to know that. “What happened with the woman?”

“We’re taking care of the matter, you don’t have to worry about it” he told. “And next time, just call one of us, okay? You could have…”

Steve didn’t finish the sentence; he didn’t need to. Her mother, Anna, and the doctor who had operated on her, entered the room a few seconds after ending the possibility to keep asking her father about Elizabeth, about what she really wanted. What kind of statement she wanted to do?

The doctor told her that the bullet had gone through her shoulder but hadn’t come out, that was the reason they had to operate. It was a simple surgery, without complications but she had to wear a sling for at least one and a half week and go to rehab if needed. Kara nodded her head and promised him to rest after he told her she could go home that same afternoon.

During the day, different people visited her. The firsts who got there were Pepper and Tony, who brought flowers and a box of chocolates. Kara wasn’t hungry, so she let her father eat almost the entire box. Pepper didn’t ask her about what had happened, she just caressed her face with tender and told her she was very brave. Tony whispered in Kara’s ear that he was very proud of her. Kara smiled and thanked them; it seemed they were the only ones who were proud of what she had done.

Sam and Clint also went to see her. Sam remarked that she was just like her father, something Steve didn’t like much. Anna pursed her lips together when she heard it and Clint hit Sam in the belly.

“Sorry, but you know it’s true” he insisted.

Was she like her father? Was she destined to save the world like him? She had felt wonderfully saving Bucky but she lacked her father’s skills. She wasn’t strong, she didn’t know how to fight, and much less defend herself. What she had done was stupid, she couldn’t say otherwise. When she had opened the door, she knew she had more chances of dying than living.

Was she scared?

Yes.

Did it matter to her?

No, if it meant saving Bucky’s life.

“Kara, we need to talk”, her mother said when they arrived home.

Kara was tired but she knew, sooner or later, they would have to talk about how stupid was what she did.

She couldn’t blame them, or at least she thought she couldn’t blame them. She understood she had scared the hell out of them, but why they couldn’t be proud of her? Why they couldn’t be like Pepper and Tony and tell her she had been very brave?

But she didn’t say anything because deep down she knew she couldn’t argue with them. She could had died and although she didn’t care because that meant that Bucky lived, for her parents the only thing that really mattered was her.

Steve offered her to sit on the couch but she shook her head. She didn’t want to be at the living room for too long. She wanted to go to her room and be quiet. She felt really tired, maybe it was because all the drugs the doctors had given to her or maybe it was because she was just tired, but she wanted to be alone.

Anna sat on the armchair and Steve stood beside her, with his hand grabbing her shoulder.

“Your father and I had been talking and we think you deserve a punishment.”

That took her by surprise.

“For saving Bucky?”, Kara asked with a frown.

“I’m very grateful for what you have done Kara, believe me” Steve admitted. Her mother didn’t seem to think the same because she let out a big sigh. “You saved my best friend life and I’ll be forever thankful for that.”

“But you could have died,” her mother interrupted him.

“Yeah, you could have died,” he mumbled. “Kara, why didn’t you come to find us? You were in a building with the Avengers.”

It was clear who was really angry there; it was her mother, not her father. Of the two, her father was more soft with her. Her mother was guided by her emotions and think that her daughter could have died was more than she could bear.

“I’ve already told you. I just reacted. I saw Bucky in trouble and I helped him,” she tried to explain. Of everyone, Kara expected her father to understand the reasons behind her actions. And she thought that if it wasn’t for her mother, that was clearly upset, he would have understood.

“By putting your life in danger?” her mother said raising her voice, hurt. “Kara, don’t you realize you have a future ahead of you?”

“Mom, I know but this isn’t about that”, she said, frustrated. She began to notice the anger going through her veins. Why she couldn’t understand that she had done what she would have done for her husband?

“I wasn’t planning on dying”

And that was true; she wasn’t playing on dying although she knew the probabilities were too high.

“It doesn’t matter, Kara. You can’t do this again, do you hear me?“ her mother insisted.

"Call us if there is any problem, that’s why we are here” Steve told her more softly.

Kara didn’t answer because she couldn’t promise that. She couldn’t promise that if Bucky was in trouble again, she wouldn’t save him. Because she would do it, again and again.

“Kara?” he asked worried. In that equation, Steve was the good cop while Anna was the bad one. That was the thing with Steve, he understood people’s feelings better than anyone.

“What’s my punishment?” she asked, avoiding answering the question as she lifted her head.

“You aren’t coming to Rome with us,” her mother spat.

Kara stared at her mother, waiting for her to start laughing but she didn’t. Then she looked at her father for support, who was looking at her with pity. Kara shook her head and smiled sarcastically.

“Wow,” she muttered.

She clenched her jaw tightly, just like her fists. She had never been so angry, not even when she found out that the persons who considered that were her friends were by her side because they wanted a picture with her father.

“If you wanted to get a romantic getaway you just had to say it, you didn’t need to punish me for saving someone’s life.”

She knew what she said was cruel and after seeing the look of disappointment in her father’s eyes, she knew she should felt guilty. But she didn’t feel any of that, she felt good. Letting go of the anger that way had done her good. And if it wasn’t because she still had some reason in her mind, she would have continued to take everything she felt out.

“Kara!” Steve half-yelled.

“What?!” she yelled back. “I thought you would understand” she pointed out.

Steve frowned his lips but he didn’t say anything. Kara hated him for that, for not defending her, for not telling her mother what she had done wasn’t that bad, that he did that all the time.

“Whatever, I won’t go to Rome. Big deal,” she spat as she turned around and went to her room.

When she closed the door to her room behind her, Kara felt like she could punch someone. For the first time in a long time, she did something that made her feel good. For the first time, she did something brave, the result of her own decisions. And as always, she was punished for it. It seemed that there weren’t more roads to follow than the ones that her parents had drawn for her. Kara was destined to be a good girl with a career and a normal job. But, what if it wasn’t what she really wanted?

Kara let herself drop on the bed, feeling pain in the arm when it bounced into her chest. She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip until the pain decreased. But it didn’t. The pain in her arm was nothing compared of what she was feeling with the whole situation with her parents. Kara had never fought with them and she had never seen them that mad at her. But that wasn’t all, Bucky hadn’t gone to see her and it was affecting her more than it should. She looked at her phone, waiting for it to ring. She needed Bucky more than ever but he wasn’t there. She grabbed the small device and tried to type with one hand, and she found out it was more difficult than she had though and that increased her anger.

 

_“Where are you? Are you okay, Bucky? I might be going crazy and I would appreciate some backup here.”_

 

Kara waited for Bucky to text back, but he didn’t. Kara tried to convince herself that he was busy, that he couldn’t answer the text. She knew Bucky was okay because her parents wouldn’t lie about something like that because he was like family, so there was no way he was at a hospital bed. What if he just didn’t want to answer?

She started to get a headache. Kara wanted to wear more comfortable clothes but after seeing her arm in a sling, she thought without help was going to be difficult and painful. But she wouldn’t call her mother, she was angry at her. Really angry. So she undid the sling, not without feeling a constant pain going through her arm when it was free of it, and started to undress herself.

Tears started to fall down her cheeks and she suppressed cries of pain by biting her lower lip. It was torture. She started to note the taste of blood in her mouth, she was biting her lip so hard she was hurting herself.

The process of undress and put on her pajamas was horrible and when she finished, Kara thought she would faint. She was tired and sore, and she felt useless.

Someone knocked the door of her room and before she could say something, her father’s head appeared through the crack of the door.

“Oh, did you put on your pajamas alone?”

Kara looked at him wearily.

“Listen, I know you are mad at us but--“

“I’m tired,” she cut him off and she felt terrible for it but she didn’t want to talk to him. “Did you want something?”

Kara saw the pain on his face.

“I just brought you painkillers.”

“Thanks, you can leave it on the nightstand.”

Steve nodded and left the pills and the glass of water on the nightstand. He looked at her daughter before turning around but before closing the door behind him, he popped his head and said: “You know I love you, right?”

Kara didn’t answer and Steve sighed as he closed the door.

“She hate us,” he mumbled to his wife as he let himself drop on the couch. “We weren’t too hard at her, were we?”

“I don’t like this either, Steve” she said. “But the only thought that she could have died… You heard the doctor, a little more to the left and it would have gone straight to her heart.”

Steve covered his face with his hands and sighed. He felt really tired. He had never had to face Kara like that before, and she had never been angry at him before. He wasn’t exactly mad at her, he understood why she did what she did. But he also understood his wife.

His mobile started to rang a few seconds after. Steve picked up when he saw the name of Bucky appear on the screen. “Finally, what did you find out?” he said in greeting.

“Hello to you too, punk. How’s Kara?”

“Incredibly angry at us, but she’s as good as someone who has been shot in the shoulder” he admitted in a sighing.

“She’s a tough girl, she’ll be fine.”

They stood in silence for a few seconds. Steve didn’t want to say it but he knew if he kept it inside him it wouldn’t do any good.

“Buck, she needs you.”

Admitting that was what it hurt him most as a parent. He didn’t understand how or why, but Kara would always need Bucky more than she needed him

At first, he got angry. It didn’t seem fair Kara trusted Bucky more than him. But he couldn’t forbid Kara to feel that way about Bucky and, truth be told, he preferred him than any other of his friends.

“Look, Steve. We’ve talked about this and I’m not really sure I can talk to Kara right now without lecturing her like you did,” he sighed.

Steve remembered the face of absolute horror that Bucky had when he entered the room. His hands were pressing the wound that Kara had on the shoulder and from his lips came over and over again the words _don’t die on me, please. Kara, don’t die on me._

“And seriously, it’s enough if she is mad at you. She don’t need to be mad at me too,” Bucky added.

“Bucky, you can’t be the cool uncle forever. And she is going to be mad at you if you don’t get your ass over here soon,” he pointed out.

Bucky went silent for a few seconds.

“I’ll talk to her tomorrow,” he finally said.

“Thank you,” he said relieved.

“I can’t promise you she’ll forgive you.”

“I know. And I hate to admit this but you are the only one who’s able to get through her in ways that we can’t. She listens to you. She trusts you.”

“I know,” he mumbled and he was completely scared by it.

He still remembered the first time he took Kara in his arms, minutes after she was born. For the first time in his life, he felt a warm feeling wrapping his heart. He had never felt that way before and when her big blue eyes looked at him, Bucky promised he was going to take care of her and love her like his own daughter.

As Kara grew, Bucky took the role of a friend in Kara’s life. At first he thought it would be temporary but eventually, he ended up being a true friend to her. Kara leaned on him, trusted him and listened to him. And in a way he didn’t understand, Bucky also found friend in Kara. He didn’t explain half of the things that happened in his life because Kara was still a kid and he honestly doubted she would be interested in a lot of things that happened in his life, but Kara was a good listener and Bucky had found himself confessing his deepest fears many times.

“Did you find anything on that woman?”  Steve finally asked, breaking the silence.

“It’s a dead end. I can’t find anything on her,” Bucky said frustrated. “And I don’t understand why the hell she shot Kara. I don’t even know what statement she wanted to make,” Steve could tell he was nervous. This is all my fault.”

“Bucky…”

“No, Steve. It’s my fault. I took her there, I introduced her into your lives and Kara was shot because of it.”

“Kara was shot because she was where she shouldn’t be,” Steve reminded him. “That woman was going to kill you, and we need to know why.”

“I’ll keep looking.”

“Get some rest, Buck. It’s an order,” he added.

“All right, Captain” he said sighing on the other side of the phone. “See you tomorrow, punk.”

“Jerk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter two it's finally here! Can't believe I actually ended it. I was so unsure about this. I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to do but I'm changing things constantly and I can only hope this make sense. Thank you for reading and for your comments, it means the world to me! I hope you keep leaving your opinions because I'm very interested of what you think about this story.


	3. Three

 

“Sometimes the best thing you can do is not think, not wonder, not imagine, not obsess. Just breathe, and have faith that everything will work out for the best.”

 

* * *

 

Kara wake up sweating and with a persistent headache and with pain in her arm. The painkillers that her father had given to her had left her totally knocked out but it hadn’t stopped the nightmares. In each one of them, she lost Bucky just as she lost herself in her grief. She felt the need to call one of her parents, until she remembered what had happened the night before. Her eyes filled with tears and she pressed her lips tightly, until she was able to stop the tears from falling down her cheeks. She wouldn’t cry anymore, she didn’t want to cry anymore.  

She got out of bed with the feeling that, if it weren’t because she knew the pain she was feeling in her arm would disappear eventually, she would die right there. She didn’t know how any of the Avengers could bear the pain of being shot. Kara didn’t want to meet her parents but she was too hungry to skip breakfast. And she was also smelling fried eggs with toasts and she couldn’t say  _ no _ to that.

Kara was surprised when she found Natasha in the kitchen. She had her back to her, placing the eggs and the toasts on a plate. 

“So, my parents sent you here” Kara said.

“Yeah, they thought it would be nice if you woke up without them here,” Natasha answered turning around and smiling slightly at her. She gestured for her to sit on the kitchen island and she placed the plate on the countertop.

“They got that one right,” Kara mumbled.

Natasha sighed.

“What?” she spat. She knew it wasn’t Natasha’s fault but she could still feel the anger in her. “I know it’s a terrifying to think that your child may have died but I didn’t do anything bad, Nat”.

Natasha placed both of her hands on the counter and stared at Kara’s eyes before saying: “But you didn’t care. When you opened that door to save Bucky, you didn’t care what could have happened to you and that’s dangerous,” she stated. “You did what your heart told you to do and that’s okay. But you’re the most important thing to your parents and they won’t never be happy with the idea of you taking bullets for others. It’s that simple.”

Looking at it that way, Kara had to agree with Natasha. She hadn’t cared die when she opened the door, the only thing she had had in her mind was save Bucky. 

She stood in silence for a few seconds, until she remembered she still didn’t know anything about Bucky. He hadn’t even answered the text.

“Is Bucky okay? Why didn’t he come to see me? I feel like he is avoiding me.”

Natasha didn’t answer immediately. She knew, sooner or later, Kara would discover that, indeed, Bucky was avoiding her.

“He’s okay, he’s just an idiot.”

Kara couldn’t help but laugh. 

“I’m not forgiving my parents,” she said.

“I’m not saying you have to,” Natasha answered.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” she repeated. “Now eat your breakfast, you should be starving.”

Natasha was right, she was really hungry. She ate the food in a blink of an eye and slowly began to feel better. Natasha gave her a couple of pills for the pain and Kara happily agreed to take them. After helping her to shower and put on clean clothes, Kara felt renewed. 

“Are you my new babysitter?” she asked as she sat on the sofa.

“I already know that you prefer Bucky, but you don’t need to make it so obvious,” she joked but Kara didn’t laugh. Not this time. She may prefer to spend time with Bucky but, at that moment, the simply fact of saying his name out loud hurt more than the bullet hole she had in her shoulder.

Before Natasha could say anything to try to cheer her up, Kara asked: “What did that woman want? Why did she want to kill Bucky?” 

Natasha sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. Kara knew she wouldn’t lie or try to avoid the subject. Natasha was the opposite of her father. She didn’t mince her words and it was one of the qualities Kara liked the most about her. She knew she could trust her. But that didn’t mean it was easier to tell the truth to a seventeen year old girl.

“I don’t know, Kara” she admitted. “The whole thing is very shady and, frankly, there are things that don’t make sense.”

“Like what?”

“Like the fact that she shot you. I can understand why she wanted to kill Bucky. Maybe she was obsessed with him or whatever. but I don’t understand why shoot you. If you’re alive, it’s for pure luck because the bullet was going straight to your heart.”

“She said she wanted to make an statement. And an statement is something a crazy and an obsessed woman doesn’t make,” she pointed out.

“Maybe, but we don’t really know the reasons behind her actions.”

“What happened after she shot me?”.

“She escaped before Bucky could get away from the chains. He had been looking for her since that moment.” 

That didn’t make her feel better. She understood Bucky would wanted to find the woman who wanted him dead but, what happened with her? Why hadn’t he gone to see her yet?

“If you’re so worried about Bucky, why don’t you go and find him? I can tell you exactly where he is.” 

Kara frowned and wondered why Natasha was telling her that.

“I’ve already told you, Bucky is an idiot and he’s acting like the worst of all.”

So actually, he wasn’t looking for that woman. At least, not at that time.

“He isn’t coming, is he?” she asked in a mutter when she realized he didn’t want to see her. 

Natasha furrowed her lips and shook her head. That was all that Kara needed to get up of the couch and ask Natasha to take her where Bucky Barnes was. She was aware what Natasha had said implied an intention and although she didn’t know what it was, she was sure she was going to find it as soon as she saw Bucky.

As they went over wherever Bucky was, Kara thought about what she would say. She could think of a thousands questions but she knew as soon as she saw Bucky, no words would come out of her mouth.

Her heart started to pump really fast when Natasha’s car stopped in front of the Avengers tower. Of all the places he could have been, the Avengers base was the last one Kara had thought he would be. 

“Did my father tell you to bring me here?” she asked as they crossed the doors.

“No. You’re supposed not to leave the house until further notice,” she pointed out.

Instead of going up as Kara had thought they would, they were going down, where the gym and the training room were. 

“What am I supposed to do?”

“You’ll know when you see him.” 

And that being said, the elevator doors opened and Natasha slightly pushed Kara outside the elevator. Before she could turn and ask what that mean, Natasha pressed the close button and the elevator began to ascend.

Kara sighed loudly as she turned again and looked for Bucky. It didn’t take her long to find him because she heard noises in the gym. When she stood in front of the open door, she found him hitting a punching bag. His face gave off more rage than Kara would ever have believed it existed. His jaw, tensed, marked the features of his face even more. And before Kara could turn around and go away the way she had come, because she didn’t believe she could speak with Bucky without feeling a searing pain in her chest, Bucky looked up and saw her. 

“Kara?” he asked with confusion, as if he really didn’t believe she was there. “What are you doing here? I though… What… Are you okay?” he finally asked, grabbing the punching bag and stopping its movements. He didn’t take his eyes off her but she noticed that he wasn’t looking her arm.

Although she tried, Kara didn’t found a reason why Bucky was avoiding her. And she doubted her parents had forbidden him to see her.

“Do you even care?” she mumbled.

“Kara, it’s not what you think,” he started to say. Kara saw the pain that question caused to Bucky. “I didn’t came to see you because I didn’t want to give you a lecture like your parents. I thought you’d had enough.” 

His words caught her by surprise. Lecture her? Kara couldn’t believe the reason why he hadn’t gone to see her was because he didn’t want to argue with her. How had she been so stupid to think that he hadn’t gone to see her because he was busy looking for Elizabeth?

“I saved your life,” she spat.

“What you did was stupid and reckless and you risked your life for nothing. I had everything under control,” he answered.

“You didn’t even have a plan, Bucky!” Kara yelled, releasing her anger.

Bucky didn’t move away. He didn’t even move when Kara shouted at him. It was the first time they argued. It was strange for him to see Kara that way.

“I’m sorry for saving your life, okay? I’m sorry for not letting you die but guess what,  _ asshole _ ? I can’t imagine a life without you and the least you could do is thank me,” she exploded. “And if you are expecting me to say that I won’t do this again, don’t hold your breath because it’s not going to happen.”

Kara turned around and although Bucky called her over and over again, she didn’t stop. Natasha was holding the elevator doors and after muttering her she hated her, both went to the main floor, left the building, got into the car and went home. 

“Why did you make me do that?” she muttered biting her lower lip and trying not to cry.

“Because you need to express what you feel, Kara. I know it hurts like hell but you have  to stop suppressing yourself and stop letting others suppress you.”

“You are the worst babysitter ever,” she babbled, making Natasha laugh softly. “I basically told him I love him, he’s not gonna talk to me ever again.”

“Believe me, men are so stupid he won’t notice behind your words were more than fraternal love,” he assured her. 

Natasha doubted if keep talking or not. 

“About that, Kara… You know I support you no matter what but you have to forget him,” she indicated. 

She expected Kara to react in a bad way but she didn’t say a thing. She looked at her out of the corner of her eye and saw she was silently crying. Natasha didn't say anything before because she thought it was a silly crush, that what Kara felt for Bucky was going to disappear one day. But Kara had been feeling that way a long time now and it was becoming an obsession. And Natasha knew how dangerous obsessions could become.

“Did you think about what are you going to do with your life?”

“Nat, please…” she begged. She didn’t want to discuss that now.

“I know this subject overwhelms you and I also know you don’t want to continue studying. Or at least, not yet. But there’s something you like to do, Kara. So, what is it?” 

Kara thought about it. What did she like to do? She liked so many things: singing, recording videos, editing them, taking pictures… But the day before, she had discovered something that had truly filled her and it was saving others.

“What does it matter? It’s clear it doesn’t matter what  _ I  _ want. My parents had drawn up a plan and my job is follow it and make them happy.”

“What is it?” Natasha asked again.

Kara sighed. 

“The other day, when I saved Bucky… I felt good. I felt like I could do that for the rest of my life and be happy and satisfied.”

Natasha started to laugh as she shook her head, confusing Kara.

“Your father is going to die of a heart attack when he finds out. Giving his age…”

“This isn’t funny,” Kara groaned.

“Yes it is. You’re just like your father and the fact you want to help the world, fits your personality. You couldn’t have chosen better.”

It was easy to have the support of Natasha. It was one of the few people she knew who supported people to follow their dreams. It was probably because she couldn’t choose follow hers.

“Remember what I told you. You have to stop repressing yourself. And if that is what you want to do… Then do it. It’s your life afterall.”

Natasha left Kara at home and after helping her to put on her pajamas, she returned to the Avengers base. When she arrived, Bucky had already showered and he was waiting patiently in one of the lounges for her to arrive. His arms were crossed over his chest and he was leaning against one of the sofas. 

“Remind me why I don’t have to break your neck right now,” he grumbled.

“You two needed to have a conversation,” she answered calmly.

“You call that  _ having a conversation _ ? I have known Kara for seventeen years and she has  _ never _ , and when I say never is never, yelled at me.”

“There is always a first time for everything,” she replied.

“She called me  _ asshole _ , Romanoff.”

“Did she hurt your ego?” she joked.

Bucky looked at her harshly. It was clear Natasha wasn’t taking the conversation in the same way as him. 

It had hurt him that Kara had treated him that way. He imagined it was because he wasn’t used to that Kara in particular. She had never been a troublesome girl. She didn’t even answer when she didn’t like something. She was rather calm and quiet.

“Why did you do it?” he asked in a sigh.

“Why didn’t you go to see her, Barnes? I understand you’re angry with her. What she did was reckless and scary but, the truth is, you’re alive because of her,” she pointed out. “And I’m not sure what you’re expecting but you decided to treat Kara as a friend and you can’t stop doing it overnight. So assume the consequences; Kara needed a friend and you weren’t there.”

Bucky didn’t have an answer for that and he hated Natasha for being right. He had wanted to see Kara and he had been about to do it a few times but after knowing he couldn’t control his anger towards her, he hadn’t wanted to ruin her day even more. He knew Anna and Steve were going to scold her. He didn’t want to do the same with her. He wanted to wait for the anger to disappear before talking to her.

“Guys,” Tony’s voice called. “You need to see this!” 

Natasha and Bucky looked at each other but they didn’t hesitate to go where Tony were. He was in his lab, watching a television screen with his mouth open. Clint was already there, and Steve and Sam arrived a few seconds later.

 

_ “This morning, the police found the body of a girl hung on the living room of an apartment in Manhattan. Elizabeth Hayes, twenty-seven, committed suicide at midnight.” _

 

The image of the woman who had pointed a gun to Bucky and had shot Kara was on the TV screen.

“What? This doesn’t make any sense,” Natasha mumbled.

“We need to call Fury”, Steve pointed out.

“Really? We need to?” Tony complained. “Cannot wait for a few more days?”.

“No,” he said firmly. “At this point he’s the only one who can help us with this.”

“I feel offended now,” Tony interrupted him.

“You can’t go to the crime scene, Tony” Steve said.

“Well, I actually can. But I guess it would look strange.”

“Should we call Thor?” Sam asked.

“God, no” Tony whispered.

“Not yet. We have to discover if this it’s a simple case for the police or if it’s an Avengers thing.”

“Why it would be an Avengers thing?” Clint asked. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to help every time but this seems something that wouldn’t have happened if Bucky could keep his friend under his pants.” 

Tony started to laugh while Bucky moved towards Clint but Steve put a hand on his chest, stopping him. Clint smirked, pleased about his actions.

“Stop it already, guys” Steve said with annoyance. “This is serious, my daughter was shot by that woman and I don’t care if it was because she was obsessed with Bucky or because she was sent by someone. We need to know every detail of this case and we won’t stop until we make sure Bucky is safe.”

They all nodded in agreement.

“I’ll call Fury,” Natasha offered.

“Thanks, Natasha” Steve said.

Natasha left the lab, followed by Sam and Clint. Tony didn’t stop until he kicked out Steve and Bucky of there. 

“Are you okay, Buck?”

“Clint is right, you know? This is my fault.”

“Hey, stop. You didn’t know Elizabeth turn out to be a weirdo.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows when he heard Steve say  _ weirdo _ . 

“It’s Kara’s fault,” he defended himself. Bucky sighed loudly.

“I need to see Kara,” he confessed. 

Steve put one of his hands on Bucky’s shoulder and squeezed it slightly. 

“Yeah, maybe the next dead body you see on TV is mine.” he mumbled, making Steve laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took forever I know and I'm sorry. I hope you like it, guys! And thank you so much for reading and commenting, it means the world to me!


	4. Four

 

“Friendship isn’t about who you’ve known the longest. It’s about who walked into your life and said “I’m here for you” and proved it.”

 

* * *

 

Humans were complicated, so relationships between humans were complicated too. Every relationship, whether if it’s with a friend, with a lover or a with a boss, has expectations. Everybody expected too much from their partners, friends or people they didn’t even know, even if they claim they don’t expect anything.

And that’s what was happening with Kara. Kara had expected so much from Bucky that when he didn’t came to help her, she felt betrayed. And although the expectations were from Kara, the fault was from Bucky. He was the one who established that relationship with her, he allowed her to support on him more than anyone who was in her life. He had never given much importance because, in a way, he liked that Kara asked help from him. He had always enjoyed her company. Kara was like a miniature version of Steve. They weren’t like two peas in a pod. In fact, apart from her blue eyes, her blonde hair and her stubbornness, Kara wasn’t like her father. But her way of being, her way of seeing the world… It was clear that she had inherited from Steve. Bucky supposed that had been his main problem, because her maturity, he had seen Kara as something she wasn’t.

“Bucky,” Anna said surprised when she saw him behind the door. “Is Steve okay?” she asked worried.

“Yes, yes” he said quickly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to see Kara,” he confessed. “If it’s too late, I can come back tomorrow.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said as she stepped away from the door to let him enter the apartment.  “I’m pretty sure she’s mad at you too,”, Anna warned him.

Bucky didn’t need her to tell him that, he already knew. 

“She isn’t talking to us, Bucky” she confessed with concern. “I’m not sure anymore if we did the right thing. Steve keeps telling me we were too hard on her.”

“Give it time,” he advised her. “You did what you had to do, you just aren’t used to punish her.” 

And that was true, Kara had done so many few things out of the ordinary that Steve and Anna hadn’t had the need to ground her. 

“Where is she?”  he asked finally.

“Her room. I’m not sure if she is already asleep,” Anna commented.

Bucky hoped it wasn’t the case because he wasn’t sure he could sleep if he didn’t solve things with Kara. He knocked the door a couple of times and waited for Kara to open it. But nothing happened.

“Kara, are you awake?” he asked. 

Nothing. He finally decided to open the door and he found the light was open and Kara was sat on bed with a book on her arm. Her arm was still held in the sling and his body, despite having her eyes fixed on the book, was tensed. He didn’t need to be a psychic to know she didn’t want him there.

“Can we talk, please?”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” she answered without looking at him. And it was hard because she always wanted to look at him.

“Okay”, he said. “But I  _ need _ to talk to you, so you’re going to listen to me.”

Apparently, he didn’t give her many options, so Kara closed the book and for the first time since he had entered her room, turned her head to look at him. There he was, with a white t-shirt and black jeans. Simple but integrated to the fashion of XXI century. Bucky closed the door behind him and approached the bed. He sat in front of Kara, who didn’t stop looking straight into his eyes. 

“Look Kara, I’m sorry for what happened before and the day before,” he started to say. “I haven’t acted like I should but this caught me by surprise. We have never been in a situation like this before and you have to understand it had been difficult for me to know how I had to behave.” 

He went silent for a few seconds, trying to find the right words. 

“When I saw the bullet going through your chest, I thought you were dead. What you did was very brave, I admit it and I’ll be eternally grateful for that, believe me. But if something had happened to you Kara…”

Bucky didn’t continue talking. He couldn’t continue. If something would have happened to Kara, he would had be the one who put a bullet between his own eyes.

“You were going to die,” she finally said.

“I know,” Bucky mumbled.

“I couldn’t do nothing, Bucky.”

“I know,” he repeated. “But that doesn’t make me feel better, Kara. I’m not mad at you for saving my life, I’m mad at myself for putting you through this.”

“I was the one who entered--“

Kara stopped talking when Bucky took her good hand between his.

“Let me take me some of the blame, Rogers.” 

Kara bit her lower lip, trying to stop the smile that was appearing on her lips.

“You have an awful taste in women, Sergeant” she joked trying to get rid of the tension between the two of them.

Bucky let out a laugh. That was one of the reasons why he loved her so much. Kara was an adult trapped in the body of a teenager. Sometimes she acted like one but most of the times she was more mature than anyone who was in the same room than her. She knew when was the right moment to joke, she knew when was the right time to stop a fight and she knew how to make someone feel better. And that was what she was doing, she was trying to make him feel better by joking around the subject. Probably that was also the reason why he considered her a friend; she really knew him. 

“I do, don’t I?”

They stood in silence for a few seconds. 

“So, you forgive me?” Bucky finally asked.

“Do I have a choice?” Kara said. 

She was happy Bucky was there but she could still feel the anger inside her. His apology didn’t change the way that he acted but she knew she would forget about this situation soon. She couldn’t be angry at him for too long. Liked it or not, she needed him.

“I can convince your parents to let you go to Rome.”

“It’s okay, I don’t want to go,” she confessed. Bucky widened his eyes, surprised. “I mean, of course I want to go to Rome but… Not with them.”

“Kara…” he started to say with a low voice.

“It’s not because of what happened,” she interrupted him. “I just… I don’t know, I can’t keep going with them everywhere.”

She had been thinking about that since her parents had suggested her to go to Rome with them. She liked to go on a vacation with them but she knew she had to start to live her own life. Although, with whom? Kara didn’t have more friends than Eyra, Astrid, Evan and Bucky. The first two were in Asgard most of the time, Evan was studying in Europe and Bucky… Bucky would never suggest her to go on a vacation with him alone.

“When did you grow up so fast?” he asked as he looked at her tenderly.

“I’m not a kid anymore, Bucky.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to see that,” he mumbled as he grabbed her chin, approached her face to his and kissed her forehead. Kara closed her eyes for a few seconds and let herself enjoy that kiss. Although it was innocent and fraternal, she knew it was all she could expect from him.

“Do you know something about Elizabeth?” Kara asked when he pulled his lips away from her forehead.

Bucky sighed loudly. He didn’t want to talk about it, much less with Kara.

“Don’t worry about that,” he answered.

“Stop leaving me out of this. I’m old enough to--”

“Actually, you aren't” he teased.

“Bucky,” she said with tediousness. 

Bucky sighed loudly and pinched the bridge of his nose. Should he tell her or not? Was she really old enough for that? Kara had never asked about a mission but the truth was she had never been involved in one.

“She’s dead,” he finally said.

Kara froze. How could she be dead? 

“We don’t know much about it, Fury is going to investigate tomorrow, but the press said it was a suicide. Don’t tell your dad I’ve told you,” he added.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Kara mumbled.

“Maybe she was afraid of what might happen to her, she knew we wouldn’t stop until we found her,” he thought out loud.

“But you weren’t going to kill her,” Kara pointed out.

“Well, I’m not sure about that” he murmured.

“Bucky!” Kara half-yelled, surprised at his answer. She knew the Avengers weren’t saints, she knew they had killed people on their way to save the world but Kara couldn’t imagine Bucky killing that woman just because of that.

Yes, she shot her.

Yes, she was going to kill Bucky.

But she was a person after all.

“What? She shot you!” he reminded her. “And she wanted you dead.”

“I’m alive and that’s all it matters,” she assured. Bucky shook his head as he laughed. “What?” Kara asked confused.

“You’re just like your father.”

It wasn’t the first time she heard it but, for her, she was nothing like her father. Steve Rogers was a hero while she only was the daughter of a hero. 

“Thank you,” Bucky said out of nowhere. Kara frowned her eyebrows, confused. “For being there when I needed you.”

“One of us will have to remember the meaning of  _ friend _ , don’t you think?” she answered with a half smile on her lips. “Just… Don’t push me away again, Bucky. I…” 

Kara stopped, she wasn’t sure she wanted to say that to Bucky. She was aware that he knew she didn’t have many friends, that she was much more alone than everyone thought. 

“You know I don’t have many friends here and… I would hate to lose my favorite,” she finally confessed.

Kara didn’t dare to look at Bucky when she said that and the next thing she felt was Bucky’s arms carefully wrapping her and moving her closer to his body. He kissed her crown and, after that, he pressed his cheek on it. 

“You’re much more than Captain America’s daughter, Kara. Remember that.”

After that, Bucky kissed Kara’s forehead and wished her good night. Kara wanted to ask him to stay but as soon as that thought crossed her mind, she realized it wasn’t right and she let him go.

Natasha’s voice saying she should forget Bucky appeared in her mind and, for the first time, Kara had realized her feelings for Bucky weren’t normal, she understood she had to forget him. There wasn’t a world in which she and Bucky could be together, leaving aside the fact that Bucky would never see her with different eyes. Daughter of Captain America or not, she was a kid. She was a girl of seventeen years who was about to disappoint her parents for the second time in her life.

 

 

 

When Nick Fury appeared in the Avengers base the next morning, everyone stopped what they were doing. Everyone except Tony Stark, who couldn’t care less about his presence. Steve had to ask him to pay some attention because he didn’t want to hear an argument between the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Tony. 

“Rumlow and I went to the crime scene earlier this morning and everything points it was a suicide,” Fury informed.

“We found this,” Rumlow said as he inserted a flash drive into one of Tony’s computer. A photography of a room papered with pictures of Bucky and Kara appeared on the screen. Steve’s body tensed and Bucky cursed out loud, earning a look of pity of his teammates. “She was obsessed with you, Sergeant Barnes.”

“You and Kara spent a lot of time together, so it makes sense she shot Kara when she appeared in the room. I think she was going to kill her anyways,” Fury added looking at Steve who couldn’t look at the screen where all those pictures were. “It’s hard to know what she was thinking when she pointed that gun to you but I don’t think she wanted to kill you, Barnes. She wanted to hurt you but she needed you alive to fulfill whatever she had in her head.”

“She was going to kill me, Fury. She wanted to make an statement. Whatever that means.”

“So what? Make an statement can be anything,” he answered, playing it down.

“Yes, but it doesn’t make sense she killed herself and you know that.”

“She was scared you found her before she found you,” Fury commented. “Guys, this isn’t anything else but a woman who was crazy. Don’t try to look things where they aren’t.”

“Excuse me Fury if I want to make sure this isn’t anything else but a  _ woman who was crazy, _ ” Steve repeated with a sarcastic tone. “My daughter could have died.”

“This isn’t Hydra, Rogers.”

The word Hydra alerted all who were there. Sam looked at Steve before asking: “Do you think Hydra is back?”

“If a head is cut off, two more will take its place,” Bucky muttered.

“And Bucky and I cut a lot of heads back in the forties,” Steve said.

“Hydra is dead, Rogers” Fury insisted. “I think you need to let go to the idea Hydra is still here because it isn’t.”

Steve didn’t believe in his words but he knew he never would. Hydra had been the worst of his nightmares, if it wasn’t for their obsession to control the world, Steve and Bucky shouldn’t have to crash the plane where the tesseract was and they would have lived in their era. He knew he couldn’t complain, he had a beautiful wife and a beautiful daughter, but he always thought what would have happened if everything had gone different. 

“Rumlow and I made sure the police didn’t remember the pictures that were in the wall.”  

“Thanks,” Steve mumbled without paying much attention to Rumlow and Fury’s looks. They left the room after saying a few more things that Steve didn’t get because he wasn’t listening.

“Hey, Cap” Tony said capturing his attention. “Do we need to worry?”

“Just say the word and we’ll go outside to find any sign of Hydra,” Clint added.

“No, it’s okay. Fury is probably right and I’m just being paranoid.”

“Hey man, whatever you need, we’re here” Sam assured him. Steve smiled slightly and thanked his friends.

“Do you know what I need?” Tony asked. “A party. Let’s party tonight!” he exclaimed.

Natasha and Clint rolled their eyes as Sam laughed. 

“You can’t say no. Pepper and I are actually having a party tonight and we need you there. Don’t ask questions because I’m not answering any of them.” 

Bucky was about to object when Tony told him he couldn’t not come. None of them wanted to go to a party but they knew Stark’s parties were known to be extraordinary and they knew they would have a good time once they were there.

When Steve got home, he realized his wife knew about the party and, in fact, she had already chosen a dress. 

“And Kara?” Steve asked. Anna shrugged. 

Before Steve could say anything, Kara appeared in her parent’s room. She looked very well; the dark circles under were eyes were gone and she looked more… happy. Steve knew it was because she had talked to Bucky, and for the thousandth time since Kara was born, he wondered why his best friend had that effect on his daughter. 

“Can we talk?” Kara asked. 

Anna and Steve nodded right away eager that her daughter talk with them again. 

“I’m not sure if you are expecting me to apologize for saving Bucky’s life but I’m not saying sorry for that,” she said determined.

“It’s okay, we understand,” Anna said and Kara was surprised her mother had said that. “I was pretty mad the other day and I’m still mad, Kara. I’m not going to lie. But I understand why you did it.”

“I’m sorry for the way I acted,” she apologized, sighing at the end. “I didn’t know it would be so hard not talking to you.” 

Her eyes filled with tears. Say she had missed talking to her parents was an understatement. She was so used to explain them her problems that not being able to talk to them about what she was feeling at that moment because they were the people that was causing it, had been really hard.

“Oh, baby” Steve muttered as he approached to her and hugged her. 

Kara bit her lower lip, trying not to shed any tears. As much as it cost her to admit, she was a mommy and daddy’s girl. She was so used to being around them and do things with them and not talking to them that past and a half say had been more difficult and painful than she had believed she could bear. The simple idea of thinking that could become permanent when she told them how she wanted to live her life, terrified her.

Her mother joined the hug and they stayed like that for a few seconds. As soon as they broke the hug, Anna told Kara that night Pepper and Tony were throwing a party. Steve rolled his eyes but he laughed when they started to talk about what they were going to wear. He knew Kara was going along with it because she wasn’t as excited as her mother was about wearing dresses, makeup and all that.

“Mom, I love you but I’m not wearing a dress with this,” she said referring to the sling. “I’m going to look ridiculous.”

“You aren’t. Steve, say to your daughter she won’t look ridiculous!” Anna yelled expecting some backup from her husband.

“Leave me out of this!” he yelled back from the living room.

“Please?” she begged. 

Kara rolled her eyes but she finally accepted wearing the maroon lace dress that her mother was showing her. She had bought it a couple of years ago and she had never wear it before. She didn’t understand why her mother was so determined to make her wear that dress but she decided not to argue with her, not now that they had patched things up.

 

 

 

No one knew why Tony and Pepper were throwing a party and despite all the questions their guests had, no one dared to ask. Tony Stark was an extravagant, weird and a man with a too high self-esteem. He threw parties almost every week and he always said he did it because he could. Everybody loved him or, at least, they found a way to love him. Even Thor, who never had thought he could feel something towards the man of iron.

When the Rogers arrived to the party, everyone was already there. Kara quickly found Bucky, who was leaning against one of the bars that Tony had placed in the living room. He was talking quietly with Sam. Tony and Pepper were in a corner, talking to James Rhodes, Tony’s best friend.

Kara was going to approach Bucky when, suddenly, she saw a tall and dark haired boy entering the living room. Kara’s eyes narrowed and her mouth formed a perfect ‘o’ when she realized it was Evan Stark. She didn’t expect to start running when she saw him. It just happened. She made a dash towards him, disappearing from her parents side and catching the attention of everybody who was at the party, including Bucky.

Evan started to laugh when he saw her and before she could crash into his body, he opened his arms and wrapped his arms around her, slowing the impact of her body into his. He heard her whine in pain when her arm hit his chest and that made Evan laugh even more.

“Shut up, asshole” Kara muttered.

“I didn’t know you were  _ dying _ to see me,” he joked. 

Kara rolled her eyes as she broke the embrace. Evan’s hazel eyes were staring at her showing the happiness he felt at seeing her.

“What are you doing here?” she finally asked.

“I just missed you too much.” 

Kara hit his chest, making him laugh. In some aspects, Evan was exactly like Tony; although Kara was glad he hadn’t inherited his pedantry. 

“My dad forced me to be here, actually. Do you know what he’s planning?”

“I don’t know,” Kara said shrugging. “Maybe he wants to show us one of his new toys?” she suggested.

Evan sighed loudly, his father was so capable of have made him go there just to show him a new suit… 

“So, that means you’re coming back to Europe?”

“Maybe yes, maybe not” he answered with a big smile on his lips. Kara frowned, confused by his answer and Evan chuckled. “I really missed you,” he said before kissing her cheek and leaving her there alone thinking about what he had said.

She finally shook her head, getting rid of her confusion and she walked where Bucky was now alone. He was looking at her with both eyebrows raised.

“What?” Kara asked as she looked back and, later, looking at her dress, looking for something it wasn’t in place.

“I didn’t know you missed Evan  _ that _ much,” he pointed out.

Kara opened her mouth to answer but no sound came from her throat, so she closed her mouth quickly.

“I… I didn’t… Me and Evan… I…” 

Kara closed her eyes and took a few seconds to figure out what she wanted to say. 

“Why are you saying this?” she finally managed to ask.

“You  _ literally _ ran towards him.”

Kara rolled her eyes.

“Come on, you know he’s just my friend,” she stated. 

Kara didn’t know why she was clarifying that. It was impossible Bucky cared if Evan was just her friend but she wasn’t understanding why he seemed so affected by it. Bucky didn’t say anything about it and that surprised Kara. 

“Are you aware that at some point in my life I’ll have a boyfriend, right?”

Kara had to make an effort not to widen her eyes when she heard herself say that. She didn’t know where that question had come but, apparently, her subconscious had taken over her body and had spoken for her. Bucky seemed as surprised as her, since he was looking at her with a mixture of confusion, amusement and annoyance.  _ Confusion _ because Kara wasn’t the kind of girl who said those things.  _ Amused _ because it was clear it bothered Kara. And  _ annoyance _ because he thought that she could do better than Stark’s son. 

Before one of them could open their mouths to break the uncomfortable silence, Tony tapped a glass of champagne with a little spoon. Bucky finally took his blue eyes away from Kara and looked ahead, where his teammate was standing with his girlfriend and mother of his child. 

“You’re probably wondering why we’ve gathered you here. I could say that it was because I said so but not today, today it’s different.” 

Some of the guests laughed. Clint made as if he was going to kill himself, making Natasha laugh. Steve hit him in the ribs; he seemed genuinely interested for what Tony was about to say. 

“I should have done this a long time ago but, for one reason or another, I didn’t. But the other day I kneeled down in front of this woman and asked her to marry me.” 

People started clapping and some of Tony’s friend started to whistle. Tony’s face was pure happiness.

“Don’t ask me why but I said yes,” Pepper said, making the audience laugh. “That’s why we wanted to throw a party, we wanted to announce that… We’re getting married!” she said showing the ring Tony had brought her. 

People started clapping again and the first one who went there to congratulate them was Evan, their son. The two of them hugged him and, after that, Tony whispered something in his ear of what Evan nodded with a smile.

A long line formed in front of them and, little by little, all the guests congratulated them. When Kara’s turn came, Pepper looked at her with a big smile on her lips. 

“I know you had a phase in which you wanted to be a wedding planner.”

Kara laughed. She still remembered when she had forced her parents to marry again so she could prepare the wedding. She was five years old.

“I don’t know if that’s still your vocation but since you were born, you have been like a daughter to me and Kara, I don’t want anyone else but you beside me.”

“Well, maybe Tony” she joked, making her laugh. 

A tear fell down her cheek. She was more than excited. Pepper had been like a second mother to her and the fact that she offered her to be her maid of honor was the best gift someone could have given to her. 

“Do you have a date?”

“In two months,” she informed her.

“Oh my God, we have a lot of things to do!” Kara exclaimed.

“Yes we have,” someone said behind her. 

Kara turned around and ran into Evan, who was looking at her with a smile in his face.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m my father’s best man. And you know what they say about best men and bridesmaids…” he started to say as he bit his lower lip, still with a smile in his lips. Kara was about to ask when Bucky put a hand on Evan’s shoulder and said:

“Someone should teach you the meaning of the world  _ subtlety _ , kid.” 

Bucky started to laugh when Evan gave him a look of pure contempt. He patted him on the shoulder and went to congratulate Tony and Pepper, leaving Kara with her eyes widened and blushed cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter and again, I wrote a totally different thing to what I had though. I'm not sure if this is good? I don't know what you think guys but I'd appreciate some feedback (if you want)! Oh, and I have a tumblr where I post some of my stuff (some Avengers imagines), so if you want to read it, here it is: inbetweenavengers.tumblr.com
> 
> Thank you again for your beautiful comments and kudos, you're amazing!


	5. Five

 

“A great relationship doesn’t happen because of the love you had in the beginning, but how well you continue building love until the end.”

 

* * *

 

The week and a half went faster than she expected and, in a blink of an eye, Kara wasn’t wearing a sling and according to the doctors, she didn’t need to do rehab. Her arm healed much better than expected and although she had a scar where the bullet had gone through, Kara didn’t care. It was a reminder that she had saved someone’s life. Specifically Bucky’s.

Since Kara had told Natasha she wanted to become an agent, she had been creating a training plan for Kara. Early in September, S.H.I.E.L.D. had a recruitment process where only the best had the opportunity to enter the program, and Natasha was willing to make Kara the best agent out there.

“You’re going to get in a lot of trouble if my parents find out about this,” Kara said while she jogged around Central Park. 

That was one of the workouts Natasha had prepared for her. Natasha had told her that before teaching her how to fight or use a gun, she needed to get some resistance. Kara had thought it would be fun but there was nothing in the world she hated more than running and Natasha was really hard on her. The first days, she thought she was going to die as Natasha pushed her to run faster. Her parents knew she jogged every morning but they didn’t suspect anything, they thought she was doing that to do some exercise. 

“Don’t worry about me, it’ll be worse for you,” she stated. 

Kara glanced at her and saw she had a smile on her lips. Kara sighed loudly and continued running. She couldn’t say Natasha wasn’t right, because she was. If her parents found out, the most they could do to Natasha was yell at her but, with her? It was different, perhaps they grounded her until she was forty.

“You’ll have to talk to them eventually,” she finally said in a more serious way.

“I know,” Kara answered sighing. 

She knew they wouldn’t understand it, the argument was going to happen whether she liked or not, and the last thing Kara wanted was a confrontation. She didn’t like them, it made her uncomfortable. As well as it made her feel nervous.

The melody of her cell phone interrupted her thoughts. Natasha turned her head abruptly, clearly upset with her for bringing the phone with her. 

“Don’t look me like that!”

“Next time, you leave it at home or I’ll break it” she declared.

“Yes ma’am.” 

Natasha rolled her eyes and Kara took the phone call. She was surprised when she heard Evan at the other side of the line. She laughed when he asked her if someone was following her because she sounded tired. “I’m jogging with Nat. What’s up?”

The conversation was short but funny. Kara didn’t stop laughing until the moment she hung up. Natasha looked at her with both of her eyebrows raised. 

“What?” Kara asked confused.

“What was that about?”

“Don’t be nosy!” she laughed. Natasha clicked her tongue. “Okay, it was Evan” she finally said. “He was calling me to ask me if I wanted to go to the movies with him. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” she repeated. “Don’t you think there’s something out of the ordinary at taking someone to the movies? Someone you like your whole life?”

“Evan doesn’t like me--” 

Kara had to stop talking when she saw the look Natasha gave her.  She knew it was stupid deny it. Even she knew Evan liked her.

“Okay, but he didn’t like me for his whole life” she stated. “And it’s just a movie.”

“It’s a date,” she corrected.

“It’s not a date,” she grunted as Natasha laughed. “And what does it matter? You’re the one who told me I had to forget Bucky. What if it’s a date?”

Natasha stopped her step slowly until she stood completely still. Kara did the same, she hadn’t another option. She saw a look of concern on Natasha’s face.

“That doesn’t mean you have to date the first guy who ask you out,” she finally said. When she saw Kara was about to reply, she added: “Evan is a fantastic guy and I know you two are really good friends but don’t do anything you won’t just because of Bucky, Kara. I know it’s confusing and it sucks but that guy really likes you. It’s not only your heart that is in the line.”

Kara knew playing with people wasn’t okay and she would never hurt Evan on purpose. Besides, Natasha was seeing things where there was none.

“It just a movie, Natasha” Kara repeated. “And you said it yourself, we’re very good friends and friends also go the movies.” 

Kara didn’t need Natasha to say what she thought out loud, she instantly knew she didn’t agree with her answer. Kara knew Evan liked her but she wasn’t going to stop doing things with him because of that. 

As she dressed for the occasion, she refused to say it was a date because she didn’t think it was, Kara heard the doorbell. She was pretty sure it was Bucky, as he spent more time at her home than in his. However, she didn’t rushed to the door as she normally would. She stayed in her room and continued getting ready. She was determined to forget Bucky, even if it was the last thing she did in her life. She couldn’t continue that way. It was time to change, to look forward, to become a new Kara. A Kara that would create a lot of problems, either with her parents or with the people who was around her and hoped she became a girl of good. She thought there was nothing wrong with wanting to become and agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. but being the daughter of who she was and having the age to go to the college, she knew no one would like that. Nobody beside Natasha, who was pretty excited that Kara was becoming a mini-her.

She looked in the mirror when she finished dressing herself and she felt satisfied with her look. With black striped jeans, a white basic tank top and white sneakers, Kara felt pretty normal, casual. She was sure she wasn't giving the wrong idea with her aspect and that calmed the nerves she was feeling at her stomach.

Kara went to the living room and saw Bucky holding a beer in his hands and leaning against the back of the couch they had in the middle of the room, laughing about something her father had said, her heart sank. She felt like kicking and screaming that it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that even when she decided to move on, he still had the same effect on her.

“Where are you going?” her father asked with surprise in his voice.

“Steve,” Anna warned him in a sigh.

“What? I’m just asking where she is going!” he defended himself. Bucky had a grin in his lips and he didn’t take his eyes away from her. 

Kara mentally counted to ten, that usually helped her to calm down. She knew Bucky wasn’t looking at her with an ulterior motive, it was simply the way he looked at everyone. Perhaps he did it unwittingly or perhaps his eyes wanted to make nervous anyone who stood in front of them. 

“I’m going to the movies,” she calmly answered.

“Alone?” he inquired.

“Steve!” Anna yelled.

“Dad!” Kara also yelled and Bucky let out a loud laugh. “And shut up, Bucky” she spat looking at him, who couldn’t stop laughing. Kara rolled her eyes. “I’m not doing this, I’m sorry” she said as she began walking to the door. 

“I swear that if you’re going with some boy--”

“Of course she’s going with a boy,” Bucky stated. 

“Bucky!” Kara yelled turning around. He was biting his lower lip as a big smile formed on his lips.

“I think I’m having a heart attack,” Steve mumbled. 

Kara hoped his father was joking because she didn’t want to imagine what was going to happen when some guy proposed to her.

“Stop being so dramatic, Rogers” Anna said rolling her eyes. At least she had her mother who was more normal than her father. “Honey, have fun. Tell Evan to take you home, okay?”

Kara wanted to disappear at that moment. The expression of Bucky’s face went from amusement to surprise mixed with a bit of disbelief. While his father… Well, his father was another world.

“I’m sorry,” her mother whispered as she covered her mouth when she realized she had said Evan’s name.

“I swear to God I’m going to kick your ass if you dare to come to the movies while I’m with Evan,” Kara warned her father. 

She knew she was technically threatening him but she knew she didn’t have another option. Steve was from another period of time and Kara was sure that if it wasn’t for her mother, and maybe Bucky, he would have chained her to the chair. 

“We’re just friends that are going to watch a movie. So stop thinking whatever you are thinking,” Kara said. “And I hate you, Barnes” she mumbled as she finally left the house. 

She heard her mother and father arguing while Bucky laughed, and she couldn’t help it but roll her eyes. They were like kids; it wasn’t very difficult to behave in a more mature way when she was around them. 

Evan was waiting for her at the entrance of the cinema. A smile crossed his lips when he saw her and after asking what she wanted to watch, he bought the tickets, although Kara insisted she could pay hers, and entered to the movies.

They talked during the trailers. Evan asked her about the morning jogging and Kara replied that she just wanted to do some workout.

“You’ve changed,” he pointed out with a smile.

“Is that bad?” she asked.

“I don’t know, I’ll tell you.” 

That made Kara laugh. Soon the lights went off and the film began. They had their eyes glued to the screen for the first half hour but, gradually, they realized they had chose the worst movie and soon began a popcorn war that ended with the two of them kicked out of the cinema.

Kara’s belly hurt because all the laughing and Evan had his cheeks slightly flushed because of that. After deciding it was too early to go home, they went to get something to eat. Not reaching an agreement with what they wanted to eat, they ended up buying a couple of hot-dogs and walked through the streets of New York while talking about everything. Nothing very personal, nothing very superficial; a normal conversation between two young people.

Kara felt really good. With Evan, she didn’t had to pretend to be older; she could be Kara, the girl of seventeen years who had just graduated and hadn’t the slightest idea whether she wanted to continue studying or becoming a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. She was tempted to tell him about S.H.I.E.L.D. but she decided it was better if she didn’t tell him. Although she trusted Evan, she wasn’t sure she wanted to tell him yet. Mostly because she wasn’t even sure if that was what she really wanted to do. 

They also talked about the wedding of Evan’s parents. Both of them confessed they hadn’t started to do anything and they promised to start as soon as possible because Tony and Pepper had put their trust in them.

“I have no idea about weddings, Kara. I’m pretty sure my father will be happy if I hire stripers for the bachelor party, though.”

“Are you even serious?” Kara asked.

“That’s what guys do! Don’t look me like that.” 

Actually, Kara thought it would be a good idea but she wouldn’t say that to Evan. She would like to see her father around stripers because she was pretty sure it would be incredibly funny. If Evan finally carried out his plan, she would ask him to record everything. 

When they arrived to her house, Kara felt complete. She had spent a fantastic evening with Evan.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Evan said. Kara rolled her eyes when she heard that and Evan laughed. “I’m sorry, you didn’t give me a choice.” 

“I was just thinking I had a lovely time with you,” she confessed smiling. 

“Yeah, me too.”

They stood in silence for a few seconds, looking at each other. Kara felt a knot in her stomach as she discovered what was going to happen next. She didn’t know if she wanted it to happen. As Evan face approached to hers, Kara thought that maybe what she needed to forget Bucky was starting a relationship with someone. Was Evan the best choice? She didn’t know. She didn’t dislike him. He was gorgeous, friendly, funny; everything she liked in a boy.

So, she let him kiss her. She didn’t return the kiss at first, but she didn’t fight it either. It was a soft and sweet kiss. Kara felt something in her chest but she didn’t know what it was. Eventually she responded to the kiss, kissing him harder. For a moment, Evan was so shocked he couldn’t move. But only for a moment. And then he placed one of his hands on her back and moved her closed to his body. Kara gasped into his mouth but didn’t break the kiss.

Someone cleared his throat behind them and they quickly broke the kiss. When they looked around, they found Steve standing on the stairs next to Bucky, who had an illegible expression on his face. Kara’s cheeks flushed and she put one of her hands in her lips, as if in that way she could erase what just happened.

“I’m sorry, St--”

“Mr. Rogers,” Steve corrected him before Evan could say his name. 

Kara widened her eyes and she was about to reply when Bucky looked straight into her eyes and made her feel really small.

“We’re going to talk about that, Stark. But, for now, you should go home and make your mother company. We’re going on a mission.” 

“Something happened?” Kara asked and she realized her voice sounded low, intimidated. 

“Nothing to worry about, baby” Steve answered her with a slight smile on his lips. “Go home, come on. I’ll be there in a blink of an eye.”

“Be careful. Please,” she said looking at her father and friend. 

“Always, munchkin.”

Bucky didn’t smile but he called her his favorite pet name. He couldn’t be mad at her about the kiss… Right?

Kara let herself fall on the couch when she entered her house as her mother looked at her with both of her eyebrows raised. 

“Evan kissed me,” she confessed. “Well, I kinda kissed him too.” 

It seemed strange, but she saw her mother as a friend. She knew she could explain what had happened with Evan because she wasn’t going to give her any weird looks or she wasn’t going to act like her father. And she also needed to say it out loud because she wasn’t sure what she was feeling. Did she like Evan? Did the kiss change anything? Did she still feel the same about him? Kara didn't know. Her stomach was unsettled but it didn’t feel like butterflies. What did that mean? 

“And dad and Bucky saw me and I promise mom, dad’s face was… I don’t even know how to describe it.”

Anna laughed.

“Don’t worry about it, honey. You’re father is... “ she sighed. “He’s your father and he’s not going to be okay with any boy kissing you.”

“He told Evan he was going to talk about it with him,” Kara mumbled covering her face.

“He was probably trying to intimidate him,” she said between laughs. “Dad adores Evan,” she confessed. “He only has to get used to the idea of you and him being together.”

Kara frowned when her mother said that and shook her head. 

“What? You told me you kissed each other!”

“Yeah mom, but that doesn’t mean we are… Together,” she clarified.  

“Why you kissed him, then?” she asked confused. 

“I thought you were the one of this century!” Kara yelled making her mother laugh. “Oh my God, I hope dad doesn’t tell Tony what happened,” she suddenly said covering her whole face and making her mother laugh even more.

 

 

 

“You should teach your kid manners,” the Avengers heard through their earphones. 

Bucky sighed loudly and thought about the idea of breaking his earphone because he didn’t want to listen to Tony and Steve discuss about Kara and Evan’s kiss. Natasha, Clint and Sam were pretty excited about hearing the whole story.

“I’m sorry Cap if my boy is clever than you and kissed the girl on their first date,” Tony answered. 

“There’s nothing here, guys. What are we supposed to find?” Natasha asked.

“ _ The girl _ is my daughter and I don’t think we’re talking about intelligence here, we're talking about respect,” Steve grumbled. “Fury said there was alien activity in this building.”

“Maybe it just Thor,” Tony joked. “And seriously Capsicle, I don’t know how you got yourself a wife.”

“It was just a kiss, Steve” Sam pointed out. “And Thor isn’t an alien, Tony. He’s a God.”

“Semi,” Clint corrected. “And  I’m sorry I’m the one breaking the news to you Rogers, but Stark’s son is in love with Kara. So it wasn’t just a kiss.”

“What?!” Steve yelled, making his friends laugh. 

“Barnes, you’re too quiet. Don’t you have anything to say about this?” Tony asked.

“Yes, I do. Can we please stop talking bullshit and start finding where this alien activity comes from? I have better things to do. Thank you.” 

Bucky knew he had been too cold but for some unknown reason, that subject bothered him. Probably it was for the same reason than Steve. In his eyes, Kara was still a little girl and the mere thought that she had the age to date boys, made him really furious. Any idiot could break her heart at any moment, and what he could do about it? Nothing. And he wasn’t used to not being able to do anything to help Kara.

“Cap, are you sure Kara is your daughter and not Bucky’s?” Sam joked.

Bucky was about to reply when he saw a bright thing in the background.

“Guys, I’m seeing something,” Bucky said as he approached where the object was. 

Everyone went silent as he inspected what it was.

“What is it?” Steve asked.

“I don’t know… It’s really shiny and… Is it a camera?” he said frowning.

“Barnes, get out of there now!” Tony yelled. 

Before Bucky could even realize what was going to happen, a loud explosion was heard through the headphones causing Natasha, Sam, Clint, Steve and Tony take their hands to their ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took more time than expected. Sorry for that but I had been very busy with work! I hope you like it because I put a lot on effort on this and I'm not sure if Kara's and Bucky's feelings would be understand. I hope so. Anyways, tell me what you think, even if you hate it! And thank you so much for your support and comments, y'all amazing!


	6. Six

 

“I will always have this piece of my heart that smiles whenever I think about you.”

 

* * *

 

Hospitals. Kara hated hospitals and it seemed, lately, she was spending more time in them than outside. His father had arrived after midnight and although he hadn’t wanted to worry her daughter and wife but he knew he had to tell Kara or she would get really angry at him. And as he expected, Kara had left home as soon as she heard the name  _ Bucky _ followed by  _ hospital _ . 

She had been waiting for Bucky to leave the operation room for more than two hours. She and all of his teammates. Kara was worried, but quiet. Despite having a huge desire to cry, she had managed to keep the tears at bay and she patiently waited for the doctors who were operating him to inform her. 

Her father hadn’t explained her very well what had happened, probably because he didn’t want to worry her more. Kara needed to know but she couldn’t ask because she was sure anyone was going to tell her. All she knew was that a bomb had exploded near Bucky and his body had been thrown into one of the walls due to the expansive wave, hitting his head pretty bad and breaking some bones during the process, among many other things. She thought it could have been much worse.

“He’s gonna be okay,” her father said to her. 

By the look of concern that Steve had on his face, Kara knew that her father was trying to convince himself that Bucky was going to be okay. Kara grabbed one of his hands and whispered to him: “I know,” with a slight smile on her lips.

Steve kissed her forehead and spent what remained until a doctor informed them that the operation had gone well and that Bucky was resting in one of the rooms, in silence.  

“Can we see him?” Kara asked getting up from the chair.

“He needs to rest,” the doctor said. “But I guess one of you can go see him.”

Kara thought her father would go. At the end of the day, Bucky was the closest thing to a brother he had. But Steve looked at her daughter and told her to go see him. 

“Are you sure?” she asked.

Steve nodded and said: “If you don’t see him, there’s no way I can’t get you out of here tonight. So yes, I want you to go. I can see him tomorrow.”

He was right, if Kara didn’t see Bucky, there was no way she left that place. Although she didn’t really want to leave, she knew there wasn’t a possibility with her parents there. She wanted to stay there twenty-four hours until the doctors discharged Bucky. 

“Don’t be scared,” the doctor said as he walked Kara to the room. “He’s connected to a lot of machines and he doesn’t look very good. But you have to remember he’s okay. He’s asleep and it’s advisable he remain that way until he wakes up on his own.” 

“Does he feel pain?”

“Not now. When he wakes up… It will be different.”

“Can I talk to him when he wakes up?”

“Yes, but he can’t answer. His vocal cords are inflamed and it takes a few days to heal,” he explained. 

The doctor repeated her that she didn’t need to be scared and after telling her she had five minutes, he left her in front of the door of the room.

Kara hesitated before placing her hand on the doorknob and open it. Her heart stopped when she saw Bucky on that bed, connected to the machines and with an aspect of a dead person. She covered her mouth with one of her hands and suppressed a sob. Kara wasn’t sure she wanted to approach the bed. She was afraid to touch a cable unintentionally and kill him. He looked so vulnerable. 

Finally, she decided to approach the bed and watched him silently as tears rolled down her cheeks. She put one of her hands on his forehead and brushed away a lock of hair. Everything she had felt that night towards him, all the anger she felt when he messed with her when he realized she was having a date with Evan, vanished. Her relationship with Bucky was like that, any feeling lasted more than two minutes. Any feeling except the love she felt for him. She put her lips on his forehead and kissed him.

“Get some rest, James” she muttered before leaving the room.

They all looked at her when she appeared in the waiting room. Kara tried to flash a smile on her lips but all that came out was a grimace. 

“Can we go home, please?” she asked in a sigh. 

“Of course, baby” Steve answered.

 

 

 

Natasha didn’t expect Kara’s message saying that she wanted to run that morning too. Although she was tired because she spent the night an the hospital as she promised Steve, she went home to take a shower and put comfortable clothes to jog around Central Park. By Kara’s look, it seemed she hadn’t slept much that night either.

“I know I told you we had to be constant with the training but it’s okay if you don’t want to run today,” she said to her before starting.

“I’m okay,” she answered as she started to jog. 

Natasha followed her without saying anything. It surprised her that, even with Bucky in the hospital, she was able to focus on training. 

An hour later, Natasha and Kara were on their way home. Still in silence. Natasha wasn’t used to the silence with Kara. She wasn’t very talkative but she wasn’t quiet either. 

“Talk to me, Kara.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I saw Bucky after you left, I snuck in. It was a shocking image but you’ve already heard the doctor. He’ll be fine,” she said trying to comfort her. 

“I know.”

“So what’s the matter?” she asked with a soft tone.

Kara knew Natasha was trying to make her feel better but she was far away of feeling okay. She was worried sick about everything that was happening and she felt powerless with the whole thing. 

“What’s the matter? It’s the second time they try to kill him in less than two months,” she pointed out.

“I don’t think they’re trying to kill only Bucky”, Natasha clarified. 

Kara looked at her with her eyebrows raised.

“What do you mean?”

“Bucky was the one who found the bomb but we all were all there.”

“Great,” she answered sarcastically. “And I can’t do anything.”

“What do you want to do, Kara? You’re not ready to be on the battlefield and even if you were, you have to pass all S.H.I.E.L.D’s test first. Not to mention that you also have to convince your parents,” Natasha remembered her. “You know I support you. If you really want to do this, I’ve got your back”, she promised. “But don’t do anything stupid. You couldn't help us even if you wanted. We don’t even know what we are facing.”

“And what do you know?” she asked.

“Nothing. We don’t really know where this all coming from.”

“Great,” she mumbled again. “Do you see it? I felt helpless because I can’t do anything. I can’t even know what all this is about! I want to help and I can’t. And I fucking hate that feeling!” she expressed, realizing all the anger. “And meanwhile, my family is in danger. My father tells me not to worry but how I’m not going to be worried when you don’t even know with what you’re dealing?”

“Kara, listen to me” Natasha said grabbing her shoulders, making her to look into her blue eyes. “We’ve been doing this since before you were born. Getting hurt is part of our job and we’re okay with it. I know it’s inevitable to worry but we'll be fine. We’ve always been. For now, just worry about improving your skills and spending more time with Evan. I heard that--”

“Not now, Nat” she interrupted her. “Talking about Evan is the least I want to do.”

Kara knew she had been churl, but at that moment, she didn’t care. She said goodbye to Natasha and told her that she would see her the next day for the morning jogging, although she supposed she would see her before at the hospital, and went home to shower and get ready to see Bucky. She hadn’t spoken with her parents about it but she supposed it wouldn’t be a problem.

When she finished her shower, she saw that her mother was putting food inside a lunchbox.

“What are you doing?” Kara asked.

“I imagined that you and your father would spent the days at the hospital until they discharge Bucky so I’m preparing food for you. Would you give one to your father, please?”

“Yeah, of course. Is he already there?”

“He went early in the morning. He was going to ask if you wanted to go with him but when he saw you weren’t in bed, he imagined you were running around Central Park” she explained. “Why are you jogging every morning? I thought you hated running.” 

“I want to stay in shape,” she said without giving much importance. “Thanks for the food, mom. Are you coming?”

“Later. I have to do a few things first.”

Kara nodded. 

“And, Kara?” Kara turned around to look at her mother. “University forms will not fill alone.” 

Kara whispered an  _ I know _ , took the lunch boxes and went towards the hospital. She hadn’t thought about universities since she had started training with Natasha but of course her mother had thought about it. She needed a plan or the whole thing was going to explode in her face at one time or another.

When she arrived to the hospital, Clint, Tony and Sam were piled at Bucky’s door room. Kara wasn’t surprised. Whatever it was what they were doing, couldn’t be good.

“What are you doing?”

Everyone turned around and they looked at Kara like if she was a ghost. 

“What?” she asked. “Is Bucky okay?”

“He’s pissed,” Tony answered. “Really pissed. I think he’s going to punch your father. I don’t know how because he has more broken bones than I can count but look,” he said stepping aside to let Kara observe the situation.

Tony was right, Bucky was furious. He was moving, trying to get rid of her father and a couple of nurses who were trying to hold him still on the bed. He was screaming or, at least, he tried to scream but he had no voice. 

“Why? What’s going on?”

“He’s refusing to stay at the hospital. He wants to go outside and find the son of a bitch who did that,” Sam told her. “Sorry for the bad word, don’t tell your father.”

“And you are all here not helping because…?”

“He doesn’t want us there. And honestly, I don’t want to get punched,” Clint admitted.

Kara sighed loudly and took a step into the room. Steve’s head quickly turned and his blue eyes widened when he saw his daughter there. He opened his mouth to tell her to get out but Kara moved before he could articulate any word. When Bucky saw her, he stopped his movements and Kara saw on his face that he was embarrassed because she had seen him like that. 

“I can’t believe this,” Steve muttered as he loosened his arm around Bucky’s body. The nurses did the same. “If I had known this earlier, I would have called Kara so you’d stop acting like a dick.”

“Language, Steve” they heard Tony say.

“Can I talk to him?” Kara asked looking at her father. She knew the nurses wouldn’t say no, so she asked permission from her father.

Steve looked at Bucky.

“Are you going to behave?”

Bucky clenched his jaw. 

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Mom gave me this for you,” Kara said handing him one of the lunch boxes.

“Thank you, baby” he said kissing her forehead. “If he does something… Call me or call the nurses. He can’t leave this room.”

“He won’t,” she promised him. 

Kara waited for the nurses, her father and the others to leave. She left the other lunchbox on the small table that was next to the bed and sat on the bed, next to Bucky. She looked at him in silence as he looked at her the same way. His blue eyes had a different brightness. Kara saw the anger in them, but also de helplessness he felt in being there without being able to do anything. Bucky felt exactly as she felt.

“You’re terrible, you know?”

That was the first thing she said. Bucky pressed his lips tightly as half a smile appeared on his lips. 

“I guess I don’t need to tell you that there is no way you’re leaving this bed until a doctor say so, right?”

Bucky sighed. 

“Great. Once we established this…”

Kara opened her purse and pulled out an iPad and notebook.

“I brought the iPad full of  _ Friend’s _ chapters and a notepad in case you want to say something.”

Bucky took the notepad and the pen with his good hand and wrote a  _ thank you _ . Kara smiled as she turned and sat in the same direction as him. She opened the iPad and they started watching  _ Friends _ . One chapter after the other.

That was how they spent the day. When it was lunch time, the nurses brought purees and liquids because Bucky couldn’t swallow anything solid. He tried to eat by himself. But not being able to use both hands was complicated, so he finally had to accept Kara’s help. He didn’t know how he felt about it, but he was sure that, whatever he felt, he didn’t like it. He felt so powerless… And let a girl of seventeen years take care of him, was difficult. It was supposed to be the other way around. 

“You took care of me all my life, don’t you think it’s time you let me do the same for you?” Kara asked.

He didn’t want Kara to think otherwise, he was grateful she was there. Since she had appeared in that room, he had felt… different. He was still angry, he still wanted to go outside to kill the bastard who had done that, but he couldn’t behave like a monster in front of Kara. He didn’t want her to have that image of him. For this reason, he stopped fighting against Steve and the nurses and agreed to stay in the hospital. At least, until Kara left. When Kara left, he was going to try it again. Although he had the slightest idea that Kara didn’t intend to get out of there anytime soon. And part of him, didn’t care at all.

His friends went to visit him in the afternoon. Unable to speak to them, he became a listener and, frankly, he didn’t like not being able to be a part of any conversation. Steve and Anna also went to see him. They tried to make Kara went home, but she declined it. 

“Your father needs to talk to Bucky,” her mother finally said. Bucky wrote something in the notepad and showed it to Kara. 

 

_ I’ll be fine. _

 

Kara sighed but left them alone. Her legs hurt and a walk around the hospital didn’t sound like a bad idea at all.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Steve said as Bucky frowned. “You and Kara.” 

He agreed with his friend on that. He didn’t know how they did it either. He couldn’t even explain their relationship with words. Bucky knew that had to be strange for Steve. It had to be strange that Kara was so dedicated to his best friend when he wasn’t even family. At least, not biologically. 

 

_ She would do the same thing for you. _

 

“That’s because I’m her father.”

 

_ Don’t be jealous _ .

 

Steve rolled his eyes. 

“I have spoken with Fury and I told him I think we are being targeted. I also believe Elizabeth’s case isn’t as closed as we thought at first.”

Steve didn’t wait for Bucky to answer, he continued talking.

“I don’t know what you think but I have the feelings this is personal. Like it’s part of something bigger. I know there will always be people who feel threatened by us. Hell, we have a guy who turns into a green monster when he gets angry. I know we’ll always have enemies but… This is different.”

 

_ What are you thinking? _

 

“Hydra.” 

Bucky didn’t rule out that possibility. He hadn’t witnessed the death of Hydra. Hydra had caused his own, although he hadn’t exactly died, he had been frozen for a few decades, but how could they be sure that Hydra had really died? 

 

_ Fury thinks Hydra is dead. _

 

“Fury can think whatever he wants. If someone is targeting us, we have to start believing about the possibility that it might be Hydra,” Steve said. “Natasha and Tony are looking for clues in the building where we were supposed to find something alien. Whatever it is, we’ll end it.”

They stood in silence for a moment, thinking about what Steve had said. Finally, Steve announced it was time to leave and Bucky had the need to ask if Kara would also leave with them. He was surprised at his own thoughts and he blamed himself for wanting Kara to spent the rest of the day with him when she probably had better things to do. 

“I think Kara will want to say,” Steve muttered. “It may be the best, that way she won’t see Stark’s son.” 

Bucky laughed.

Indeed, Kara asked if she could stay there when she and her mother entered the room and her father said it was time to leave. Anna and Steve exchanged glances but they accepted because they knew they had no other choice. However, Anna played that to her favor: “But you have to promise tomorrow you’ll fill the university forms.” 

Kara sighed but nodded. 

Kara and Bucky started to watch  _ Friends _ again and, at mid afternoon, Kara’s phone started to ring. After seeing who was calling, she put the phone upside down and ignored it. Irritated by the sound of the constant vibration of the phone, Bucky turned off the iPad and looked at Kara.

“What?” she asked. 

Bucky pointed the mobile. 

“Nothing important.” 

Bucky raised his eyebrows. 

“It’s Evan,” she finally said sighing.

“Pft,” Bucky let out. 

This time was Kara who raised her eyebrows.

“What does that mean?”

Bucky took the notepad and began to write. 

 

_ It means that, from all, you had to fall in love with a Stark? _

 

“I’m not in love with him!” she exclaimed, startling Bucky. “It was just a kiss.”

She didn’t understand why she was justifying herself but she felt the need to do so.

 

_ Good, because I don’t like him. _

 

That answer caught Kara by surprise. He didn’t even know enough Evan to say that.

“Okay… Why?” she asked confused.

 

_ He’s Stark’s son. _

 

Bucky was aware of that answer was stupid but he hadn’t found anything else to say because he actually didn’t know why he didn’t like Evan. He didn’t even know the kid.

Kara didn’t answer to that because all the answer she had involved the same: that Evan was nothing like his father. And if he was, what was the problem? She liked Tony. He was funny and he was madly in love with Pepper. Whatever he did in the past, was in the past. However, she decided to stay in silence. 

Bucky didn’t say anything about it either, so they took the iPad again and continued watching episodes of Friends. Dinner arrived shortly after and, as it happened at lunchtime, Kara helped him. After that, the two of them were too tired to continue doing anything so they decided to get some rest. Kara made the move to get up and sit on the uncomfortable chair that was next to the bed but Bucky took her hand, stopping her. 

“Where…?” he started to say. His voice sounded hoarse, damaged. He closed his eyes, it was clear that it hurt to speak.

“To the chair, to sleep.”

Bucky was about to nod but he patted his bed instead. Kara looked at him with surprise. Was her mind playing tricks? 

“What…? Bucky, you have four broken ribs and… No, I’ll sleep on the chair.”

“Come here,” he said almost without a voice. “I’ll be fine. I can’t… Let you… Uncomfortable,” he said.

Kara thought about saying no. But when she saw Bucky moving with difficulty to let a part of the bed free, she couldn’t refuse. As a matter of fact, she didn’t want to say no. She took off her shoes and, carefully, she laid on the bed beside him. Bucky was on his back as Kara was facing him so it was more comfortable for the both of them. Kara thought she would be unable to sleep with having him so close to her. 

“Thank you, Kara” he mumbled turning his face slightly.

Kara took a deep breath before smiling slightly. 

“Why?” she asked.

“For taking care of me,” he said without voice but Kara read his lips.

“I always will,” she admitted and Bucky believed it.

They stared at each other for a few seconds before Bucky pressed his lips into her forehead.

“Sleep tight, munchkin” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, sorry for the wait. I'm working a lot and it's hard for me to write every day, but this story is still alive! And thank you for reading and commenting, your feedback means a lot and it helps me to continue the story. I hope you like this chapter!


	7. Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took me more time than the other but well, I hope you like it! And from now on, I think you can expect more action. At least, I hope so. Thanks for reading and comments are always appreciated. You're the best!

 

“It doesn’t really matter who you used to be, what matters is who you’ve become.”

 

* * *

 

Spend the days in the hospital had become a kind of habit since Bucky was there. Every single day that went by, he was better. He recovered the speech a couple of days later and, gradually, he was also recovering movement. Everyone saw on his face that he  wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, he wanted to help his teammates to find out who had caused all that.

As time went on, Steve was convinced Hydra was behind all. Bucky didn’t know what to think. He believed Steve was obsessed with the subject but, what if it really was Hydra?

“I think you’re ready,” Natasha told Kara that morning when they stopped running around Central Park. 

Kara looked at her with a slight frown. The imminent danger and the pressure of her mother to fill out collage forms, made Kara decide what she wanted to do in the future. She wanted to be an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and she was going to fight for it no matter what it cost her.  

“You’re as annoying as your father. You spent all this time saying you wanted this and the moment I say you’re ready to learn how to fight, you look at me with that face?”

“Calm down, Nat. I’m just surprised,” she said. 

Kara was also scared, although it was something Natasha didn’t need to know. 

“When do we start?”

“Tomorrow."

A lump formed in her throat. Why she suddenly felt so nervous? If Natasha noticed, she didn’t say anything.

Natasha walked her to the door of her house, as she did every morning after the running session was over. As they approached, Kara saw a lot of people dressed in black and armed that came and went from her portal. Natasha quickly stood in front of her and pulled out a gun

“What the hell? Where were you hiding that?” Kara almost yelled as she pointed the gun.

“Stay here,” she said in a cold tone.

Kara didn’t understand why she made her stay there when it was clear that all these people were Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but she decided not to question her. She knew Natasha Romanoff too well to know that there were things that couldn’t be questioned.

“Agent Romanoff, the area is safe. The Captain and his wife are inside the house,” one of the agents said. Natasha sighed and lowered the gun. She told Kara to come with her and they entered the house together.

That all those agents were there couldn’t be good. When they entered the house, Kara felt something she couldn’t decipher. The house where she was born and raised was completely destroyed. Her father was hugging her mother while he cradled her from side to side, trying to comfort her. 

“Oh Kara, baby” Anna choked with emotion when she saw her.  

“What…?” 

Kara realized she couldn’t pronounce the words. Anna broke the hug and went to Kara.

“Robbery?” Natasha asked while Anna hugged her daughter.

Steve shook his head and Natasha’s face tensed. 

“Are you both okay?”

“Yes, luckily I arrived before they could hurt her,” Steve muttered.

“Who wants to hurt her?” Kara asked pointing at her mother. “Who would do this? It doesn’t make any sense, dad.”

None of them answered and Kara thought it wasn’t because they didn’t know anything, but because they didn’t want to tell her what they knew.

“What are we going to do now?”

Although her father didn’t answer the question, Kara saw on his face that her house, the house where she had lived all her life, was no longer safe.

While they tried to discover the next move, Steve ordered to one of the agents to take Kara to the hospital. In those moments, as weird as it sounded, Kara didn’t want to be with Bucky but with her parents instead. She had the feeling that as soon as she crossed the doors of her house, she wasn’t going to come back. But her father didn’t give her another option. She couldn’t be there and she knew Steve had to discuss things she couldn’t know.

“Hi, munchkin” Bucky said when he saw her. 

Bucky looked better, his blue eyes were shining again and his face had another color.

When he saw Kara wasn’t answering, he asked: “Okay, what’s wrong?”

Kara sighed as she plopped down in the chair. 

“I shouldn’t tell you this but you’re going to find out anyway.”

Bucky frowned. Secrets weren’t good and if Kara thought she had to keep a secret was because something serious was happening.

“Someone broke into our house.”

“What do you mean with  _ someone broke into your house _ ?”

“I don’t know. Dad didn’t want me there and the only thing I know is that they tried to attack my mom.” 

Bucky grunted something unintelligible and quickly got out of bed. 

“What are you doing?”

He didn’t answer. Kara tried to stop him but she knew it was stupid.

“Kara, I love you, but if you don’t leave the room on your own I’m going to kick you out,” he grunted. 

Kara thought about staying and make things harder for him but after seeing the threat was real, she left the room with a grunt.

Seconds later, Bucky came out wearing a gray sweatpants and a short-sleeved black shirt that her mother had brought him for when he got out of the hospital. And, apparently, today was that day. 

“Bucky, please, can you at least wait until a doctor discharges you? You’re about to make things worse,” she said in a desperate attempt to make him see reason.

“I’m fine. I have been fine for a long time and if something happens to me, I’ll call Bruce and tell him to check on me.”  

Kara let out a grunt again but she didn’t stop him, she didn’t even tried to. She knew Bucky too well to know he would get away with anything he had in his mind, so it was silly to waste saliva trying to convince him otherwise. Although she was worried because Bucky wasn’t recovered. He could hardly walk and if it wasn’t because he was wearing a black shirt, it would be full of blood. His ribs weren’t quite recovered, the doctor had said it the day before.

The doctors and nurses that were in the halls tried to stop Bucky but after seeing he was going to do anything to get of there, they stopped trying. That was how he was: stubborn and willing to do whatever it took to be next his best friend Steve Rogers. Kara had heard a thousands of stories of these two and the truth was she didn’t need to know those stories to know they would go to the end of the world if that meant save the other.

When they left the hospital, they ran into the last person Kara expected to see there. Evan Stark was getting out of his car and Kara had the slight feeling he was there for her. She had been ignoring him since they had kissed and that had been two weeks ago. At first, she thought it was because of Bucky’s accident. Then she thought it was because she was too stressed with training with Natasha and filling out college forms. And finally, she stopped thinking about it because Evan stopped calling and sending messages. 

When Evan’s blue eyes met her own, Kara took a deep breath. She saw on his face that he was upset by her silence but she also saw something else.

“Great. Evan!” Bucky called out as he walked down the stairs to approach where he was.

“What are you doing?” Kara whispered before Bucky took away the car keys that Evan was holding with his hands.

“Hey!” Evan exclaimed. “What the hell, man?”

“Inside. Everybody. Now,” Bucky ordered.

Evan looked at Kara trying to get some sort of explanation but she shook her head and followed Bucky’s orders. She sat on the passenger seat while Evan, resigned, sat on the back of the car.

None of them said anything in the first stretch. Bucky was too focused driving, Evan was too focused imagining different scenarios where he didn’t let Bucky take his car keys, and Kara… Well, Kara was uncomfortable. Period.

While Bucky was parking, Kara sighed loudly as she looked at him. 

“Bucky, could you promise me that when you make sure everything is fine, you let someone look at those wounds?”

“Of course, munchkin” he said in a sigh as he kissed her forehead.

Bucky got out of the car and didn’t wait for them to follow him. In fact, Kara didn’t want to follow him. She didn’t want to see her father’s face when he saw Bucky appear. Kara rested her head on the back of the car chair and sighed. 

“I’m sorry for what had happened. Someone broke into my house and attacked my mother. Bucky went crazy when he found out.”

“I know. I went to the hospital as soon as my father told me,” Evan confessed.  

That only made her feel worse. She had ignored him for days and as soon as he found out her family was in danger he ran to offer his help.

“Kara?”

“Hm?”

“I think we need to talk.”

Kara wanted to say him no, but she knew she couldn’t do it. So she didn’t say nothing at all.

“At first I thought you weren’t answering my calls because you were scared after what had happened in our date.” 

There was the damn word: date. Evan had said it. For him, it had been a date. 

“When my father told me Bucky was in the hospital, I thought you’d be overwhelmed for what had happened,” he commented. “But today… When I saw you two together… I realized that you haven’t answered my calls because you’re in love with him.”

His confession stopped her heart. She turned her head abruptly and looked at him with wide open eyes.

“Are you insane?”

Evan laughed with weariness. 

“Kara, come on. Don’t lie to me. Not about this. You knew I liked you and you let me kiss you when you didn’t even like me.”

It hurt her he said that. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t like she didn’t like him… She liked him but maybe… Maybe it wasn’t enough.

“That’s not true, Evan.”

“Yeah, sure. That’s why you didn’t answer my calls, right?”

Evan sighed when she didn’t answer. He opened the back door of the car and got out. Seconds later, he opened the front passenger door and sat down. 

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to go home. I’m glad your mother is alright.” 

Kara wanted to reply but Evan didn’t want to listen to her, so she got out of the car and watched Evan as he started the car and left. A feeling of distress took hold of her body and she had the slight feeling that, from there, everything will go from bad to worse.

Apparently, she wasn’t really wrong because within half an hour of arriving there, her parents left the house followed by Bucky, Natasha and Tony and told her that until everything was solved, they would move to the Avenger’s base. They also told her to pack. 

“Are we in danger?” she asked to her father. 

Steve pressed his lips together before sighing.

“Don’t worry, baby. We got this covered.”

But she didn’t believe him. It didn’t seem they had everything under control. Too many things were happening for the Avengers hadn’t found a solution.

While she packed, Kara couldn’t help but feel sad. She had to say goodbye to her room, her den, the room that kept such good memories. When she was ten years old, her father built a fort with sheets and after deciding it would be a good idea to invite Bucky, the three of them spent the night telling stories and laughing.

When they arrived to the tower and Kara saw Thor, Bruce and Fury there, she knew the situation was pretty bad. Before Pepper could show them their new rooms, Thor and Bruce went to say hello. 

“Lady Kara,” Thor said with a smile before hugging her. “Eyra and Astrid wanted to come but… I thought it was best if they stood in Asgard.”

Kara nodded, it made sense Thor didn’t want them to be in danger.

Pepper showed them their new rooms and although Kara’s room was bigger than the one she had in her house, she felt like an outsider. She sighed loudly as she left the suitcase on the bed.

“Take the time you need to make this room, your room” Pepper said with a soft tone. “I think today is a good day to talk about the wedding, don’t you think? Maybe it helps you to get distracted,” Pepper thought. “I’ll be in the kitchen. If you have trouble finding it, call J.A.R.V.I.S. and he’ll help you.”

“Thank you, Pepper.” 

Truth was she didn’t want to talk about the wedding but Pepper was trying to be nice and perhaps she was right and she would get distracted. So when she finished putting her clothes in the closet, she left the room and tried to find the kitchen without J.A.R.V.I.S. help but, after fifteen minutes, she gave up and asked him to lead her to the kitchen.

They spent the afternoon watching magazines and planning the wedding. And, apparently, Pepper was right when she told her she would get distracted because she didn’t think about what had happened with Evan until she saw him appear in the kitchen. It was clear that he didn’t know the reason she was there and when his mother told him that they were going to stay there for a while, the expression of his face changed.

“Great,” was the only thing he said.

Pepper and Anna looked at each other and then they looked at Kara, who rolled her eyes. She got up from the chair and left the kitchen following Evan.

“Can we talk?” she asked as she tried to follow him. “Evan, please” she told him when they arrived to his room.

“Okay, talk” he said.

“Not here,” she mumbled as she pushed him inside his room.

It wasn’t the first time Kara was in Evan’s room but she was always surprised with all the pictures of the two of them that were hanging in one of the walls. She smiled lightly; Evan had been one of her best friends and confidants and he was still being one. 

“I’m sorry for what had happened. I truly I’m sorry but I don’t think the date we have was a lie, because it wasn’t. I had fun and it had been a long time since I had a good time.”

“But you thought it wasn’t a date,” he pointed out.

“Yes,” she confessed. “But maybe, deep down, I knew it was one. I know for some time that you like me. And, in a way, I want to like you. That’s why I let you kiss me and why I kissed you too.” 

“But?”

“But for some reason, I can’t get Bucky out of my head.” 

Evan shook his head as he plopped down on the bed. 

“I’m not stupid, I know I don’t have a chance with him. Believe me, I know. I had been torturing myself for a long time. And I want you to know that I’m trying, I’m really trying to get rid of what I feel for him.”

“Is that why you didn’t answer my calls?” he threw in her face.

Kara was about to reply but Evan interrupted her. 

“Look, Kara… I don’t judge you for what you feel but I thought that we were friends. You could have told me.”

And she hadn’t told him for that reason, because she thought he was going to judge her. Who wouldn’t? She was in love with her father’s best friend.

“Kara, you’re my best friend. I would have never judged you for that”, he sighed when he discovered her thoughts.

“I know that now”, she mumbled. “I’m sorry for ignoring you. I didn’t want to… But believe it or not, the kiss let me a bit confused.”

“Do you think you could feel something for me?”

“Maybe. I don’t know… “ she admitted. “I guess we never know if we don’t try.”

“Do you want to try it?” he asked. “I’m not trying to pressure you. I just… I need to know, Kara. I need to know if I have any chance with you.”

Kara observed Evan for a few seconds. She was sure her body reacted in an unknown way when he was around. It wasn’t like what she felt when Bucky was around her but it wasn’t like she felt around other people. And the truth was a feeling of comfort and pleasure came over her when she was with him. She thought that had to mean something.

“Yeah, I think I do” she finally said. She wanted to try before deciding if Evan was meant for her or not.

The smile that appeared on Evan’s lips filled her chest with happiness and involuntarily her lips smiled too. Who knew if they could get a relationship like the one of her parents? Or like his parents? 

“There’s another thing I need to tell you.”

“Please, don’t tell me you’re in love with my father too.” he joked.

Kara hit his arm, making him laugh. 

“Sorry. What is it?”

Kata explained him the training sessions with Natasha and what they meant. Evan listened in silence, without interrupting her. When Kara finished her speech, Evan took both of her hands and told her: “Look, if that’s what you want to do… Then, great. Do it. I support you. I hate you want to put your life in danger but that makes you a badass and it’s kind of hot.”

Kara rolled her eyes and laughed.

They stood talking a few minutes more until Kara started to feel the tiredness on her shoulders. She yawned and after Evan insisted that maybe she should go to sleep, kissed his cheek, wished him goodnight and left the room just at the same time Bucky was walking past Evan’s room.

Bucky stopped walking and looked at Kara as she closed the door without taking her eyes off him. 

“Is not that Stark’s room?” he asked. 

Kara sighed and started walking towards where she thought her room was. But Bucky stopped her by taking her hand. 

“Sorry. If we’re going to live here together, it would be better if I don’t talk bad of your boyfriend.”

“Seriously, Bucky?” she asked with weariness.

“Sorry,” he said laughing.

“Liar.”

“Come with me, I want to show you something.” 

Bucky pulled her hand and Kara had no choice but follow him. As they walked through the halls, Kara looked down at their intertwined hands and her stomach filled with butterflies. She had to suppress the smile that tried to form on her lips. She hadn’t thought about the fact that living in the Avengers base meant living with Bucky and she made a promise to Evan. She knew she wouldn’t be able to feel something for Evan if she didn’t forget Bucky.

“Tadaa,” he said when they arrived to the roof. “My favorite place.”

Kara took a deep breath and let it out. The roof of that tower was her favorite place too. There she could be whoever she wanted to be. There she could believe that anything was possible. 

“Why is this your favorite place?”

“Problems doesn’t exist up here. I feel like… I can be whoever I want.”

Kara laughed lightly. 

“What?” he asked confused.

“This is my favorite place too and for the same reason.” 

Bucky smiled as he approached the wall that prevented people from falling and he leaned against it. 

“How are your ribs?” she asked while she imitated his movements.

“Resentful,” he laughed. “But I’ll survive.” 

Kara shook her head as she laughed. 

“By the way, how are you?” he asked a few seconds after.

Kara sighed. 

“Tired. Afraid. Angry” she muttered.

Bucky looked at her with compassion.

“You’ll be fine, Kara.”

“I know, but it doesn’t make things easier,” she said. “I know I’m not one of you and I can’t know a lot of things but Thor and Bruce are here. I’m not stupid, something really bad is happening.”

“We’re going to solve this. We always do.”

Kara nodded. Bucky was right. The Avengers always fixed the problems, one way or another. And she knew that by having them as a family, nothing would happen to her. But she was more worried about what would happen to them, it was clear someone was trying to hurt them.

“Bucky, can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, of course,” he answered as she tilted his head to look at her.

“Would you be angry if I decided not to go to college?” 

Bucky frowned and Kara lowered her head. She was afraid to see the disappointment on his face. 

Bucky took one of Kara’s hands and forced her to look at him. Kara thought he would drop her hand but he didn’t. 

“Do I want you to go to college? Of course but if it’s something you don’t want to do, then don’t do it. It doesn’t matter what we think or how we feel, Kara. It’s your life and you have to live it as you want. We can tell you do this or do that but, at the end, you’ll be the one who decides what road you want to follow.”

Kara bit her lower lip, feeling very vulnerable.

“Oh, munchkin” he muttered as he approached her body to his and hugged her. He placed his chin into her crown and cradled her. “I guess your parents doesn’t know anything of this?”

“They don’t.”

“Do you want me to help you tell them?”

“No. It’s okay,” she muttered into his chest. “I’m the one who needs to tell them. I’ll figure it something out.”

They hugged for a few seconds. A few seconds that allowed Kara to close her eyes and dream that in an alternative universe she she could be hugged to Bucky all her life.

“Kara, I’ve been wanting to tell you something for a while,” Bucky muttered interrupting her thoughts. 

Kara’s heart stopped. She broke the hug and looked at him with wide open eyes. Bucky laughed when he saw her face and caressed one of her cheeks. 

“Don’t look me like that, it’s nothing bad.”

“Okay?” she said unsure.

“I just… I just wanted to thank you  for everything you have been doing for me. I know you will tell me that it’s okay but you have to know it means a lot to me. See how much you care about me.”

“Why I shouldn’t care about you?” she asked with a frown.

“Because I’m an old and boring man.”

Kara laughed. “You’re not-- Well, you’re old but you aren’t boring.”

Bucky laughed. 

“Just try not to get yourself killed in these next weeks, okay? I’d like to have some rest for a change.”

Bucky laughed and nodded.

“I owe you one anyway. I’ll think of your reward.” 

Kara wanted to tell him it wasn’t necessary but she knew Bucky would do it anyway

They stood there a few more minutes until Kara yawned again and Bucky decided to end the night there.

When Kara touched her bed, she thought the day couldn’t have ended in a better way. She closed her eyes and fell asleep in seconds. However, a movement woke her up at dawn. She opened her eyes and found Natasha’s face a few centimeters from hers. 

“What the hell, Nat?” she whispered.

“Get up, we have work to do.”

“What?”

“Training time.”

“It’s…” she looked at her phone. “Jeez, it’s 5:00 AM!”

“It’s the only moment we have to train. Nobody is going to bother us. No one is going to know what we are doing. So get your ass out the bed because we have work to do,” she ordered again.


	8. Eight

 

“Everything is hard before it’s easy.”

 

* * *

 

Kara found it hard to keep her eyes opened the first minutes of training with Natasha. Apart from a cup of coffee, the Black Widow didn’t allow her to eat anything. “

You don’t want to vomit,” she said to her as she took the muffin that was in her hand. 

“So, the first thing we are going to learn is how to defend yourself. It’s important because most of the times what you are going to do is defend yourself more than attack someone. We are the good guys, we don’t fight unless someone is trying to kill us,” she said. “Always guard your face. Most of the punches would go there so put your hands on your forehead and your arms tight on your body. I know it looks ridiculous but it protects your face and your ribs, a place you probably want to protect because it hurts like hell when they break your ribs.”

They practiced for several minutes. Natasha made it look like she was going to punch her and Kara tried to defend herself. At first, her reaction was cover her face with her hands but finally, after realizing that what she was doing was leave her ribs exposed, she began to practise the technique Natasha has taught her.

“Now, if the attacker tries to choke you from behind, press his forearm against your collarbone. Don’t try to pull it directly off because you probably will end dead. I’m not saying you’re not strong enough to push it away but the chances are that the attacker would be stronger so don’t pull it off,” she recommended. “Then, you have to put one hand on the elbow and the other one below it so in a strong and determined movement, you can step and swing your entire body around. This will get you out of his or her choke and will leave his or her head, ribs and legs wide open to you to attack.”

That technique was a little more difficult to practice. Kara had a hard time getting rid of Natasha’s grip and when she finally got it, Natasha taught her another technique.  They stayed at the gym for several hours, until Kara told her she hadn’t more strength to keep training. Her face was red of the effort, parts of her body that she didn’t know they existed started to hurt and she had the feeling she wasn’t going to be able to move the next day.

When Natasha looked at her, she did it with boredom. She had both of her hands placed in her hips and she looked as if she hadn’t spent hours training. She was as fresh as a daisy. Kara asked herself if someday she would be able to do all that without getting tired.

“I guess I don’t need to tell you that you won’t pass the tests if you don’t try hard enough, don’t I?”

“This is the first training session, let me breathe Natasha,” she said after a sigh.

“In a week, we’ll be in July and the tests are in September. You don’t have time to breath,” she insisted. “I don’t want to annoy you, I’m saying this because the alarm is gonna sound tomorrow at 5AM and you’ll feel tired as hell. But you’ll have to wake up, Kara. That’s what we do, we get up even when we believe we can’t.” 

“I’m ready for this, Nat. I know it’s gonna be hard and this is a big commitment but I have decided it. I want to be an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.. This is what I really want.” 

Natasha smiled, proud of the choice of words.

“Good. See you tomorrow at 5 o’clock.” 

“Yes ma’am.”

Despite being hungry, Kara decided to take a shower before breakfast She felt completely renovated when she got out of the shower and she thought that, maybe, training in the morning was a good way to feel good. 

“Good morning!” she greeted with a wide smile when she entered the kitchen. 

The only one who was there was Evan, who at that time was eating cereals. He looked at her with both of his eyebrows raised, trying to discover why she was so cheerful. 

“Why are you looking me like that?” she asked as she took a cup and put milk on it.

“You’re too happy,” Evan said.

Kara put some cereals in a bowl and sat in front of Evan. 

“I had my first training session with Natasha this morning. Well, this dawn” she corrected herself. “And I feel like a complete new person.”

“Well, tell me if tomorrow you can get out of bed,” Evan replied laughing. “And what have you learned?”

Evan couldn’t help but smile when he saw Kara’s excitement when she explained her training session with Natasha. He found it crazy that Kara wanted to be a part of that world, a world that he was trying to avoid. And if being an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. was Kara’s real dream, he was going to support her. And he knew that was something she was going to need when her parents discovered what she was doing.

“I didn’t think about this when I decided to accept Stark’s offer…” Steve sighed as he watched her daughter and Evan from the doorframe of the kitchen. 

“What’s going on?” Thor asked confused.

“Kara and Evan are a thing now,” Clint answered.

“That means you and Tony are a family now?” Thor asked with eyes wide open. “I’m glad my daughters aren’t here.”

Steve grunted something unintelligible. Thor chuckled.

“I don’t think you have to worry, Steve” Bucky said.  “By the way Kara had explained me what is happening between these two, it didn’t seem serious.”

“I’m not worried about Kara, I’m worried about him. He looks at her the same way I looked at Anna, Bucky. And he’s Stark’s son, so he’s gonna try everything to win her heart,” he sighed again. “Come on, we have work to do,” he said as he started to walk towards the operation room Stark had build for The Avengers.

Bucky stayed behind for a few seconds while Steve words flying around his head. It was the sound of Kara’s laughter that woke him up and when he saw her trying to get rid of Evan’s grip, a knot formed in his stomach.

“Bucky, are you coming or what?” Clint yelled from across the hall.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m coming,” he mumbled feeling really weird.

Kara suddenly stopped her movements when she saw Bucky’s silhouette walking away from the kitchen. Inevitably, she felt an emptiness inside and Evan seemed to notice her sudden change of mood. 

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” she quickly answered. “I promised your mom that I’d go with her to try dresses for the wedding so… See you later?”

“Yeah, of course” he said with a smile in his lips. “Have fun and don’t fall asleep as you watch my mom try every dress in the store.”

“Why should I fall asleep?” she asked with confusion.

“Oh honey, you won’t be this lively throughout the day. Tiredness will take your body, you’ll see” he said, laughing. 

Kara raised her eyebrows. “Did you just call me  _ honey _ ?”

Evan chuckled. “I guess I did,  _ honey _ .”

Kara rolled her eyes before laughing and go looking for Pepper and her mother. She couldn’t deny she liked having Evan around and, since his return, she felt much better. She was aware that she hadn’t been alone at any time but Evan was her friend, her best friend, so having him next to her was a relief. And at times like this, when her life was changing so much, she was really lucky to have him.

Pepper decided it would be appropriate eat before going to the stores to try wedding dresses. At first, Kara thought it would be a good idea but with the exhaustion she felt because of the training, eating hadn’t been the best idea of all. Keeping her eyes opened became a complete nightmare. But she tried. She had to. Kara didn’t need anyone asking questions.

After fifty failed attempts, Pepper finally  found the perfect wedding dress. Kara and Anna’s eyes filled with with tears when they saw her appear. 

“You look like a princess,” Kara mumbled as she covered her mouth with her hands.

Pepper also felt thrilled when she saw her reflection in the mirror.

“I can’t believe I’m marrying Tony Stark,” she admitted as she wiped the rebel tears that had escaped her eyes. 

“Yeah, me neither” Anna said making them laugh. “It’s gonna be a beautiful wedding.”

“I hope so, knowing Tony as I know him… I hope he doesn’t do something stupid,” she said in a sigh. 

“Don’t worry, I have everything under control,” Kara assured her. “I made Evan promise que would have her father controlled.”

Pepper smiled, grateful. 

“Are you going to the wedding with him?”

That question caught her completely off guard. Kara looked at her mother for help. 

“Don’t look at me,” she said as she shrugged. “I want to know the same thing.”

Pepper laughed.

“I know what’s going on between you two. Don’t you dare tell me that nothing is happening,” she warned her.

“But nothing is happening!” she exclaimed. Pepper and her mother raised her eyebrows. “At least, not yet” she admitted.

“So, are you going to the wedding with him?” she asked again.

Kara hadn’t thought about the fact that she could go with him.

“I know for sure he wants to go with you,” Pepper added with a roguish smile. 

“Okay, I’ll ask him,” she finally accepted. “But if he says no, I’m gonna crash your wedding and I’m gonna enjoy it,” she joked, making her laugh. 

The idea of going with Evan didn’t dislike her.  She had promised him she was going to try it so it seemed the right step to ask him to go with her. 

So when she arrived to the Avenger’s tower, the first thing she did was look for Evan. She found him talking with J.A.R.V.I.S. in the lab, where as his father, was trying to fix some devices that only they understood. 

“Hello Jarvis,” she greeted.

“Miss Rogers,” he greeted with his british voice. “How are you doing today?” he asked.

“I’m doing pretty fine, Jarvis.”

“You seem tired, Miss. Rogers.”

“Are you analysing me?” 

Evan laughed.

“Mr. Stark had programmed me to identify when one of his guests wasn’t in good shape,” he confessed. “I’m not saying you aren’t in good shape but--”

“Jarvis, I think you better shut up before Kara kills you,” Evan interrupted him.

“You’re right, sir.”

Kara shook her head as she burst out laughing.

“How did it go?”

“Very well. You’re going to freak out when you see your mother. She’ll be beautiful.”

“She already is,” he admitted and that melt Kara’s heart.

Kara observed Evan for several seconds while he worked on the artifact she couldn’t identify. She knew she could ask him but the odds of her understanding what he was saying were so few that she chose not to.

Evan’s lips cracked a smile when he noticed Kara was staring at him. 

“What do you want, Rogers?” he asked without looking at her.

“Why do I have to want something?”

Evan left the screwdriver on the table at the same time he raised his eyes and stared at Kara.

“I have known you for a few years and I know you aren’t interested in what I’m doing,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the fact you are here but you’re distracting me so, what do you want Kara?” he asked again.

Kara sighed loudly as she absently rubbed her neck. When Pepper had suggested her to told Evan to go with her to the wedding, it sounded like something easy to do. She knew he wasn’t going to say no. But asking the question meant giving a very big step in the relationship they had.

Kara asked herself again if that was what she really wanted. A part of her was excited at the possibility of going with Evan Stark to the wedding while the other part was completely scared. But she knew that was normal, being scared was part of that equation. 

“Do you want to go with me to your parents wedding?” she suddenly asked.

When the words left her mouth, her cheeks turned completely red and Kara wished the earth swallowed her. Evan started laughing.

“What do you think, silly?”

 

 

 

Bucky groaned when he didn’t find anything he liked on TV. He had been out with the rest of the Avengers looking for clues, but they hadn’t found anything. They hadn’t found anything because they had no idea what they were looking for.

As if that weren’t enough, the feeling of disgust that invaded his body when he saw Kara and Evan flirting had returned when he heard her ask him to go to the wedding with her. He hadn’t the slightest idea why he was feeling that way and that only made increase his frustration. 

“You’re going to break the remote control if you keep pressing it so hard.”

Bucky looked up when he heard the voice but he didn’t need to see Kara to know that it was her. He didn’t want to talk to him. For the first time in a long time, Bucky didn’t want to talk to Kara. He was overwhelmed with the whole Avengers thing and the feeling that caused him see Kara with Evan didn’t help him at all.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as she plopped down to his side. Kara took her sneakers off and put her feet on the couch. 

“You lied to me. You said you didn’t like Evan.”

The words escaped his mouth. If anyone asked him why he had chosen that moment to say that, he wouldn’t know what to answer. He figured it was because he needed to vent with someone.

The sigh that Kara exhaled sounded tired, as if she was tired of having that conversation. But Bucky wasn’t sure she had that conversation with anyone but him. And, again, he didn’t know why he kept bringing it up.

“I didn’t lie to you,” she answered. “I said I didn’t love him, that’s a completely different thing,” she explained. “And why do you care so much?” she asked as she fixed her eyes on his.

Why did he care so much? Bucky was sure it was only a matter of concern for her well-being. He had seen Kara born and he had accompanied her during all the stages of her life. It made sense he was worried about her. And he was Stark’s son. Of all, why she had chosen him?

“I don’t want him to break your heart.”

And although it sounded stupid, it was the truth. 

“I’ve already told you. I’m not a kid anymore, Bucky” she sighed. “People are gonna break my heart, that’s something neither you or me can’t avoid. And if he does break my heart, he won’t be the first anyway.”

Hear that someone had broken her heart before, destroyed him. Before he could ask who had broken it, Kara got up from the couch, picked her sneakers and started walking away from him. But before she could leave the living room, she turned around and said: “I know you don’t like Evan. I don’t understand why because you don’t even know him. He may be Stark’s son but he’s my best friend. He’s the only person who has been by my side all these years, liking me for who I am, not because who my father is,” she confessed. “And you can tell my father too if you want but for the simple fact that you don’t like Evan, doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop seeing him. So get used to it.”

Bucky was completely dumbfounded by her words and he didn’t dare to say anything.

“You are  a dick,” a voice behind him said. Bucky turned his head abruptly, finding Natasha with her arms crossed over her chest. “You aren’t her father. Why did you have yo say those things to her?”

“I don’t know. I just did. And I know I’m not her father.”

“Do you? Because it doesn’t seem like it. You keep telling Kara you don’t like Evan and, honestly, it’s not your place to say anything about the subject. I’m well aware you and Kara have a weird relationship and you two see each other like friends but  I’m not sure you know what you’re doing, Barnes.”

“What are you trying to say?,” he asked as he got up from the couch. 

Natasha pinched the bridge of her nose. She knew Kara wouldn’t stop loving him if Bucky kept giving her false hopes. Maybe he didn’t know what he was doing but his actions could be misinterpreted very easily.

“Fuck Barnes, she loves you,” she finally confessed, compromising her relationship with Kara. But she knew that was she needed to do. It was the only way for Kara to start being happy with Evan. “She’s in love with you and if you keep telling her not to be with Evan, at the end she’s gonna listen to you for the wrong reason.”

Bucky’s first reaction was laugh. Natasha was crazy for saying something like that but, when he saw her face, he knew she wasn’t lying. 

It couldn’t be possible. Kara couldn’t be in love with him. It was stupid and  _ wrong _ .

“Don’t mess with me, Romanoff” he hissed.

“Do you think I would mess with something like that?”

“Fuck you. Seriously, fuck you,” he said as he left the room.

“Fuck,”, Natasha muttered as she covered her face with her hands. She had the feeling she had screwed things up and there was nothing that she could do to stop the storm that was coming. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, this chapter is up later than expected. But it's finally here and, as always, something happened that I didn't plan and I'm pretty excited about how it turned up. I'm not sure you're gonna like it but I hope so. I always wanted to say that I started a new fic, it's called "Choices" and you can find it in here too. 
> 
> Feedback is alwats appreaciated it. Thanks for reading!


	9. Nine

 

“Being ignored by someone whose attention means the world to you is the worst feeling.”

 

* * *

 

Natasha was right when she said it was going to be hard. Kara found it awful to wake up the next day and it was much harder the third. But she made it. With much effort and willpower, Kara went to the gym every dawn and trained, even when the whole team of the Avengers, included Natasha, had to go on a mission. Natasha told an Agent to keep trying Kara but not before threatening him that if he said something to Steve, or anyone for that matter, she was going to kill him.

Kara didn’t have much time for anything else. Despite being used to get up every morning very early, during the day was too tired to do something useful. And if it weren’t enough, Pepper and Tony’s wedding was approaching and  _ doing nothing _ wasn’t in her plans. Fortunately, Evan was helping her in everything he could and Kara couldn’t be more grateful to him.

The week that the Avengers were on a mission, despite the complaints from her father, Kara had been able to spend some time alone with Evan without worrying that her father appeared and dragged her to her room.  They even went to a  _ real date _ . Evan had taken her to an Italian restaurant and when they finished eating, he took her to an amusement park where they enjoyed like little kids. At the end, when they were coming back to the base, with their hands intertwined, Evan stopped walking, making Kara do the same.

“What’s up?” she asked with a soft smile on her lips. 

She gently squeezed his hand, trying to comfort him. For the first time since she met Evan, she saw him nervous. Really nervous. He was biting his lower lip and he was unable to look into her eyes. 

“Evan, is everything okay?” she asked again, this time worried.

Evan nodded before looking up. 

“Remember when you told me you wanted to try whatever was happening between the both of us?” 

“Yes, I do. I thought that this is what we’re doing right now,” she answered laughing softly.

“Yeah, yeah. I know,” he quickly said. “But I really want to kiss you and I don’t know if we are there yet.”

This time, Kara didn’t felt a knot in her stomach and she neither though it wasn’t what she wanted. In fact, she felt something stirring in her. She felt nervous, excited.

“You’ll only know if you try,” she mumbled.

He cupped her face while she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. Opening her mouth to his, she welcomed his tongue. He ran  his hands up her back while pulling her closer to him. When Kara’s body touched Evans, she let out a slight moan. They both knew that if they let that continue, it would be very difficult to stop and they also knew their relationship wasn’t there yet. So, they broke the kiss, smiled softly and returned to the base.

But not all were good things. Kara noticed that Bucky was avoiding her. She didn't’ know why but every time their paths crossed, Bucky disappeared as fast as if the devil was chasing him. And if she tried to ask him something, he just answered with excuses. She tried not to give it much importance and when he went on the mission, she thought he would come back completely renovated. But she was wrong, she came much worse. So worse that he didn’t leave her room unless somebody needed him. 

She had never been in a situation like that. Kara and Bucky had never been more than two weeks without talking. She didn’t know what to do. She thought about facing him but, how was she supposed to do it if he ignored her?

“What the hell is wrong with Bucky?” she finally asked in the second training with Natasha after she returned from the mission. After all, she was the only one Kara could talk about that particular subject. 

That question seemed to take Natasha off guard and it caused Kara to hit her in her stomach.

“Oh my God!” she screamed as she covered her mouth and Natasha swore in between groans. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to hit you. I… Wait,” she stopped her apologize. “Did I just hit Black Widow? Oh my God!” Kara screamed again, this time excited.

Natasha rolled her eyes. 

“Don’t get excited, you weren’t that great. You caught me off guard.”

“That’s what worries me. Why?”

Natasha couldn’t deny Kara was smart. She could be quiet or shy, but she was a very good observer. And what just happened, anyone would have seen it as a slip. But she knew there was something behind it and, the truth was, Natasha couldn’t keep lying anymore. Not to her. She had never had lied to Kara before, but she had never had the need to do it. 

The problem with Kara Rogers was that she appeared to be much older than she really was and adults opened before her without remembering she was only a kid. And that was what happened to Natasha. She treated her as an equal and if she cared so much for her it was because she didn’t want her to go through what she had been through when she was young.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” she finally confessed with a sigh. 

Kara frowned and mumbled an  _ okay _ , not knowing what to expect. 

“And before I do it, you have to know I didn’t do it to hurt you. You know I’ll never hurt you, Kara. Please, remember that.”

“You’re scaring me,” she said worriedly.

Natasha took a deep breath and expelled the air loudly. She didn’t want to tell her the truth but she didn’t have a choice. If Kara found out by someone else, she would feel even more hurt than if she told her.

“Bucky knows.”

At first, Kara thought Natasha meant Bucky had discovered she was training for being an agent. But if it had been like that, Bucky would have gone to ask for an explanation. It didn’t make sense he was ignoring her for that. But when she saw the expression of Natasha’s face and noted it was flooded with sadness, compassion and a lot of feeling, Kara’s stomach squirm. She took a couple of steps back, moving away from Natasha.

“I’m terribly sorry, Kara” she started to say, approaching her. “I really do. But I thought Bucky behavior was giving you the wrong signals. And now that you’ve decided to try it with Evan, I didn’t want you to stop trying for the wrong reasons and Bucky was giving you the wrong signals so I told him.”

Kara didn’t need to say anything, Natasha saw it reflected on her face. She was hurt because she had tell her secret without her permission. She was horrified because she had discovered the real reason why Bucky couldn’t even look her into her eyes. And her heart was slowly breaking because she was realizing that, from now on, nothing would be the same.

“You had no right to tell him,” she murmured, her voice breaking in every word. “Fuck, Natasha. Why?” she said as tears began to fall out her cheeks.

Her voice was so full of feelings that Natasha felt awful with the decision she had made

“Oh my God,” she said covering her mouth. “I need to talk to him.”

“Kara--”

“Don’t. Shut up. You’ve done enough.”

As Kara went to Bucky’s room, where she was sure she was going to find him, she wondered about what would happen. She had never imagined that Bucky would discover her feelings. When she said she had no chance with him, she mean it. She was a smart girl; Bucky could be many things for her but she knew he would never be what she wanted him to be.

She needed to make him understand that she had everything under control. That he had nothing to worry about. That she was fine. That she was aware of her feelings but nothing had to happen. That she started a relationship with Evan and she was happy about it.

Kara knocked the door with her knuckles and after hearing his voice saying to come in, Kara opened the door. He found Bucky on his bed, reading a book. He looked relaxed, quiet. But as soon as he saw her,  he closed the book and got up, standing across the room as far away as he could. Kara tried to ignore the unpleasant sensation that ran through her body.

“Can we talk?” she asked in a whisper.

Bucky didn’t want to talk to her but, from the beginning, he had known sooner or later Kara would go after him. He knew her too well to know that, in the end, she would have asked for him.

“I’m busy.”

He had to try.

“I know Natasha has told you.”

And there was the topic he had tried to avoid during those weeks. Bucky had a hard time believing Natasha’s words. It was impossible that Kara was in love with him. It was stupid. But as the days passed and he analyzed the situation, he realized it was more truth than he liked to believe. Kara loved him and she did it in a way she shouldn’t. And he hated himself for that. He hated himself for making her believe she could love him as something more than an uncle.  He had allowed it. He had decided to treat her as an equal. He had decided to treat her as a friend. He had allowed her to stay at the hospital and take her of him. He had allowed it and it was his fault.

“Are you going to say something?” she finally asked.

“What do you want me to say, Kara?” he answered with weariness.

“You don’t have anything to say? Seriously?”

“No.”

It was clear he wanted to finish that conversation as soon as possible but Kara didn’t seem to leave without fixing it. She couldn’t be without Bucky and that was it. She could live with the thought he would never be hers but she couldn’t live without him.

“Okay, then I’ll talk. I don’t know what you’re thinking but stop.” 

For the first time since she had entered the room, Bucky looked her into her eyes. His eyebrows were arched and a look of disbelief was on his face. Bucky had already decided what to think. He had already decided what he had to believe. 

“I’m sorry but I don’t decide for whom I have feelings. I have always known what I felt was wrong and I have never believed that something would happen between us.”

“It didn’t seem like it when Natasha asked me to stop telling you I didn’t like Evan. She really believes what I say to you can affect whatever is going on between you two.”

Kara didn’t know what to answer him. She listened to him but not because she loved him. She listened to him because she trusted him. However, Bucky took that silence as something else.

“Damnit Kara, do you realize what this means?”

“It doesn’t mean anything!” she exclaimed. “It hasn’t to mean anything. Ignore it, Bucky. Please,” she begged, desperate to make him realize nothing happened, that her feelings didn’t have to change a thing.

“I’m sorry but I can’t ignore it,” he confessed. He truly couldn’t ignore what she felt. “It’s over, Kara. From now on, we’ll behave as who we are. I’m your father’s best friend and maybe an uncle to you, but nothing more.”

“You can’t do this,” she mumbled.

“I can and that’s what I should have done from the beginning,” he spat.

Kara felt like her world was falling away, shattering into tiny little pieces. She felt an urge to cry and to scream but nothing happened.

“I wasn’t expecting you to say you loved me, you know?” she muttered as she tried to suppress the tears. “And you were afraid that someone broke my heart? Congratulations Bucky, because you’re the one who is breaking it.”

Bucky lowered his head when he heard her words. Kara shook her head as she turned around and left the room. With the certainty that she wouldn’t focus on anything else in the rest of the day, she locked herself in her room. She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t so it. She wanted to scream, but no sound came out of her mouth. As she felt her heart break into pieces, she didn’t feel anything else but anger, frustration and an uncontrollable urge to hit something. 

Her father went to tell her lunch was ready but she told him she wasn’t feeling really well and Steve let her rest. At night, her mother was the one who went to look for her but Kara repeated her words. “I’m not feeling really well.”

“Something’s wrong with Kara,” Anna told her husband. “She would never miss a meal.”

“Bucky?” Steve called him. 

Bucky looked up from his plate of spaghetti.

“Can you talk to her? Maybe she’ll open to you.”

“Maybe Evan should go,” he muttered. He didn’t want Evan to go but what was he supposed to do? Kara was like that because of him. 

Evan, who was rummaging through the fridge, raised his head when he heard his name and fixed his eyes on Bucky. 

“You’re her boyfriend now. Act like one.”

“What the hell man?” Steve said surprised.

“Steve,” Anna warned him. 

She didn’t want him starting a fight over nothing. She didn’t know what was happening with Bucky and why he didn’t want to talk to Kara but van was their best shot. 

“Evan, honey. Do you mind going to see what’s going on with her?”

“Yeah, of course,” he quickly answered as he closed the fridge door and headed to Kara’s room.

Evan didn’t need Kara to tell him anything. He knew it was about Bucky as soon as he named him to go to talk to Kara. Bucky would never tell him to go with Kara if he could go himself. He had never understood Kara and Bucky’s relationship and the truth was, he didn't want to. Bucky’s presence made him nervous and although he didn’t want to admit it, it made him jealous too. Evan knew Kara wouldn’t look at him the same way she looked at Bucky. But he had accepted it. And he wasn’t going to stop to win her heart because of that.

When Evan entered her room, he thought Kara would start crying but she didn’t. Quite the opposite, she smiled slightly and invited him to sin on the bed with her. Evan did it and wrapped his arms around her. 

“Do you want to talk?,” he asked.

“No,” she answered with a sight.

“Should I punch Barnes?”

“He would probably kill you but thanks for asking,” she said laughing.

“You’re welcome. Is the least I can do.”

Kara pressed her head on his chest and sighed. 

“Whatever had happened, you’ll survive. You’re strong Kara, and that idiot doesn’t deserve you to waste your time thinking about him.”

Kara knew he was right but she had no control over her feelings so she couldn’t do anything about it.

“You should be angry with me,” she mumbled.

“Maybe, but I’m not. The heart wants what it wants and I know part of it wants me so I’m trying to win it all.”

“Thank you,” she smiled as she caressed his face.

Kara realized she couldn’t stop living her life for the simple fact that Bucky didn’t want to see her. And even though it was hard to wake up the next morning, she went to the gym to train with the last person she wanted to see. Her anger helped her train with more determination and although Natasha didn’t express it, Kara knew her punches were hurting her. And that made her feel good.

Natasha apologized every day for a week until she realized Kara didn’t want to hear her apologies. She was surprised that she was taking the whole situation that way. She hadn’t seen her shedding a single tear and that worried her. Natasha knew Kara was keeping her feelings to herself and that could only mean that someday she was going to explode.

In one of the trainings, Natasha hurt Kara. In an attempt to defend herself, Natasha hit her mouth with her elbow and she split her lip. 

“I’m fine,” she said when Natasha tried to help her.

“Kara, this has to stop” she finally said. “It’s good that you’re using your anger to train but if you keep punching me like that, you’re gonna hurt me for real and like today, I’m gonna have to hurt you back,” she said. “I love you but I’m not gonna let you punch me.”

Kara let out a loud sigh as she tried to stop the bleeding with her hand. Although she didn’t want to admit it, Natasha was right. At first, she felt really good as she punched her but now she began to feel bad.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I just… I… Fuck Natasha, you really hurt me,” Kara mumbled.

“I know and you don’t have to apologize to me. I’m really sorry for what I did. I thought I was doing the right thing,” she confessed.

“Maybe you were,” she sighed. “You showed me who Bucky really is.”

Natasha was about to reply but she thought that maybe it was best not to say anything. She had been observing Bucky during that week and say he was a walking disaster was an understatement. The dark circles under his eyes indicated he did everything but sleep. And he wasn’t like himself either. Everyone was starting to see something was happening with him and that wasn’t good. If he didn’t want them to start asking question, he had to start being the Bucky everyone knew.

“Let’s clean that wound,” Natasha finally said.

They went to the infirmary and after Natasha made sure that no one was there, she told Kara to sit on the bed as she looked for everything she needed to clean the wound. 

“You have improved a lot, you know?” she said. “I’m really surprised. I think you have an opportunity to pass S.H.I.E.L.D.’s tests.”

“Do you really believe it?”

“Yes but you have to be better than the others because you’re Captain America’s daughter and that will condition you. You’ll have to prove you’re more than that label.”

Kara nodded. At the end of the day, that was what she had been doing all her life so it wouldn’t be difficult to prove that she was much more than Captain America’s daughter. 

A noise made them turn her heads towards the door. Kara felt her breathing stopping when she saw him standing there and looking at her with an intensity that intimidated her. Natasha opened her mouth but Bucky raised one of his hands shutting her up. 

“Out. Now,” he spat. 

Natasha knew better than going against him so she looked apologetically at Kara and left the infirmary. 

While Bucky closed the door, Kara got off the bed. But before she could do anything, he grabbed her face with strength and examined her wound. 

“Stop, you’re hurting me,” she said as she slapped her arm, trying to get rid of his grab. 

But Bucky didn’t let her go. He didn’t’ want to let her go. For days he had noticed Kara was more tired than usual, and he also had noticed Kara complained when she did some moves. He had promised himself to stop intervening in Kara’s life, he couldn’t let her do that.

He still cared about her. And he would never stop caring for her. He knew and he couldn’t deny it. And Kara wanting to be a part of S.H.I.E.L.D. meant that she would be in danger every day, every hour, every minute and every second and he couldn’t live with the feeling that Kara could die at any moment. He couldn't and he didn’t want to live that way.

“What is it, Kara? Romanoff didn’t teach you to get rid of someone’s grid or what?” he provoked her.

His attitude bothered Kara more than it should. So she kicked his stomach with her feet, pushing him away and she got up from the bed as she touched the part of the neck where Bucky’s hand had left a feeling of pain.

“What’s wrong with you?” she yelled

“That is my question!” he yelled her back for the first time in his life. “Why the hell are you training with Romanoff? Why the fuck do you want to pass S.H.I.E.L.D.’s tests? Are you insane, Kara,” he argued. “Is that the reason you don’t want to go to college? Are you throwing out your whole future to get killed before turning thirty?”

The fact that Bucky thought that she becoming a S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent would mean die before thirty bothered her. He didn’t think she was capable of doing it. He didn’t think she was going to be a good agent.

“You lost your right to care the other day, Bucky “ she spat. “ You have been ignoring me for a week and now you believe you can come here and make me do whatever you want? No, this is not how it works. So stop whatever you’re doing because I’m not your daughter. Or your friend. Or your niece. I’m nothing for you, you said it yourself. So leave me alone. Let me live my life.”

Kara didn’t dare to look Bucky’s face after saying that. She walked towards the door, opened it and left the infirmary with an uncontrollable desire to get to her room and lie down to cry. This time, she felt the tears piled up in her eyes, ready to fall down to her cheeks. She heard a sob escaping her lips and she pressed them hard to contain the following.

Soon she felt a pair of arms wrapping her and when she looked up, she saw Evan. That made another sob escaped her lips and, this time, it sounded like if a wounded animal were screaming. Evan pressed her body against his and whispered: “It’s okay. You’ll be okay.”

But, would she be okay? Because she felt like she no longer had any part of her heart intact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of things happened in this chapter. I think it was kind of a rollercoaster of emotions and it really touched me. I felt like I had to rush things a little bit because I was getting stuck in the story and I didn't want that to happen. So, I'm sorry if you don't like how this turned out. I hope you do, tho. Thank you so much for reading and as I said the other day, a new story has been posted here! It's called 'Choices' and I would like to know what you think about it!


	10. Ten

 

“Don’t try to understand everything. Sometimes it is not meant to be understood, just accepted.”

 

* * *

 

Kara had never wished for a perfect partner and she had never expected an amazing romance. All she had ever wanted was someone who brought back the love that she gave. Someone who she could call _hers_.

As she watched Evan work on her father’s bachelor party, Kara wondered if she would ever love Evan as much as he loved her. It had been a week since the fight with Bucky and although she didn’t regret anything she had said, she couldn’t help but miss him. Maybe her feelings for him were wrong but she had grown up with the promise that Bucky would always be there for here. Realizing it wasn’t true was hard.

Evan lifted his head and fixed his blue eyes on her. Kara smiled slightly and after winking an eye at her, Evan looked at the laptop screen he was working on.

Kara knew Evan was having a hard time with all that was happening. He felt powerless for not being able to do anything about it and he was angry for Kara’s feelings. But he knew he had a chance to win her heart and he didn’t want to mess that opportunity so he tried to put his feelings aside and give the best of him to Kara.

It was unfair, she thought. It was unfair having someone who loved her, who cared about her and, after all that had happened, he was at her side and she couldn’t feel anything more than affection for him.

Yes, she liked Evan.

Yes, when she was with him she was happy.

But she didn’t _love_ him. She didn’t _love_ him the way she loved Bucky. She was aware that could change over time but, at that time, Kara thought she didn’t deserve having someone as Evan in her life.

Her mother had noticed her mood change, her seriousness. At first, she hadn’t wanted to say anything but after seeing that it wasn’t a temporary thing, she asked if something was wrong with Evan and Kara didn’t know what to answer.

In some part, Evan was a very important factor but the real reason why she was feeling so down was because of Bucky. How many times she had tried to tell her mother what she felt and how many times she had to bite her tongue for fear to cause a war between all of them? Always. Confess what she felt to her mother would be digging her own grave. And Bucky’s too.

It bothered her that after all, she still cared about him. Bucky had rejected her in every possible way; he wanted nothing with her. And after the meeting they had in the infirmary and after what she told him, Kara was sure that Bucky wouldn’t change his mind. He hated her for what she felt. He hated her for what she was doing with Natasha. He was really disappointed with her and Kara wasn't sure if she could blame him for that or not. She knew what she felt wasn’t appropriate. She knew that, sooner or later, someone would find out and although she had never thought Bucky would be the first, she knew there was a possibility.

“I know I love Evan, I have always loved him. But I don’t know if I love him the same way he loves me, mom” she finally said.

Anna pressed his lips together and touched her daughter’s cheek gently before saying: “You have always known that Evan liked you. Why did you decide to try it if you weren’t sure about your feelings?”

“Because I thought I would fall in love with him. I know we have been together for a few weeks but he is in another chapter in this relationship and I…”

Kara was at the very beginning. She was in the beginning of the story and she wasn’t sure that would ever change.

“I’m happy when I’m with him and when we kiss I want more but…”

“You’re not in love,” she said.

“And I don’t think I would ever fall in love.”

Saying that hurt her and relieved her in equal parts. Recognizing that she would never get to feel what she felt for Bucky was hard but it was one of the few truths that she had accepted.

“You don’t know that, honey” her mother said trying to cheer her up. “Maybe it’s not your time. The fact that Evan is ready now doesn’t mean you have to be. I know you don’t want to lose Evan but forcing yourself to be with him isn’t going to change your feelings, Kara. You’re are young and there are so much people who are going to get in and out of your life… Even those who you thought would always be with you.”

Kara felt the need to start crying at what her mother had told her. Imagining a life without Bucky was hard enough to add the fact that maybe Evan wasn’t destined to be in her life forever too.

It wasn’t fair, she thought again. None of that was fair.

“What are you thinking?” Evan asked as he watched her from the corner of his eyes.

Kara thought that telling him the truth would have been very easy if she didn’t care about the consequences but her fear of hurting him and losing him made her shake her head and smile.

“Nothing. Tell me, what are you going to do with your friends tonight?”

Evan didn’t seem very satisfied with that answer. However, he didn’t ask again and she explained Kara what his plans were for that night. He was meeting some old school friends and although he had invited Kara, she had refused it. The truth was she wasn’t feeling that great and although she was putting a smile in her face every minute, she was tired. Tired of smiling without having a reason to smile. Tired of faking to be happy when she wasn’t. Tired to try to make happy everyone else. Just _tired_.

Kara knew what she had to do. She knew she had to think about what was she going to do from now on. The conversation with her mother opened her eyes. If she kept trying that relationship with Evan now that she had recognized she didn’t love him and that maybe she would never do it, she would hurt him.

“Are you sure you’re gonna be fine?” her father asked her as he grabbed the backpack and put it on his shoulders.

Her parents big day had arrived too. They were going to Rome that same afternoon and although they told her she could go with them, Kara had also refused. Pass S.H.I.E.L.D’s tests had become her first goal and with her parents off, she could train as much as she wanted without fear of getting caught. She knew she had to be careful with the rest of the Avengers but they didn’t go to the gym as much her dad.

That was another thing that she had to think about while her parents weren’t there. She had talked to Evan and Natasha and she had concluded that after Tony and Pepper’s wedding, she would tell them that she wasn’t going to college and she was going to try to get into S.H.I.E.L.D. She knew her parents wouldn’t understand but she had to do it. She had to be brave.

“I’ll be fine, dad. And you have your team to look after me.”

“Yeah, talking about them… Where is Bucky?” he asked as he looked around, looking for his best friend.

As if he had heard him, Bucky appeared at the end of the hallway with a bottle of beer in his hands. His blue eyes sparkled and Kara discovered that it wasn’t the first beer that he had drunk  that day and it wasn’t to be the last one.

Living in the same place, it was impossible not to see him. Although they both tried to avoid each other, they were always find each other. What she felt when she saw him was indecipherable. Fear, pain, frustration, love… A lot of feelings that overwhelmed her.

Before he approached where they were, Kara hugged her parents and wished them a good and safe flight. Bucky watched her as she turned away and left the room.

“Is everything alright?” Steve asked with a frown.

“Yep,” Bucky answered. “Ready to go?”

“More ready than ever,” Anna answered with a smile. “Take care of Kara, okay?”

“Yeah…” he mumbled. “Have fun, punk.”

“Jerk,” Steve said with a smile on his face.

Bucky watched his friends leave. When the elevator doors closed, he sighed and drank all the beer. He struggled for a few seconds if go to grab another or not, finally deciding he needed something stronger.

He had tried everything and he didn’t manage to remove of his head the conversation he had with Kara. She loved him. The person he took care of and treated like his own daughter was in love with him. He thought by stepping away, she would forget him. But he knew his plan wasn’t working. He knew Kara too well to know that she was still crying at night and still faking smiles. And he felt empty without her.

Kara was the person who he came when he felt lost and although he didn’t explain to her everything, she was still a kid, she was there for him. She made him laugh, she distracted him. And now… Now he couldn’t count on her. That was the reason why they were in that situation. He had treated her as something she wasn’t and, for that, she had fallen in love with him.

He went to the nearest bar, sat at the bar and ordered the entire bottle of whiskey. He wanted to get drunk. He needed to get drunk.

“You should stop drinking.”

Bucky turned his head, finding Natasha sat on the stool next to his in the bar. He had no idea when she had entered the bar.

He had been getting drunk every night since he and Kara had argued. Alcohol helped him to remove those memories from his mind and it made him feel slightly better.

“And maybe you should get the fuck outta here,” Bucky spat with anger. He was still very angry at her.

“You’re acting like an idiot, Barnes.”

“Stop pissing me off, Romanoff” he said as he clenched his hand around the glass of whiskey.

“Or what?” she tempted him. “Are you gonna hit me? Kill me? Tell Rogers what I’m doing with his daughter?”

Bucky took a deep breath through his nose and sighed loudly as he clenched his jaw tightly.

“You know I’m right. You’re not really mad at me, Barnes. You’re angry at yourself because you’re realizing you need her the same way or even more than Kara needs you. And that’s fucking scary because it’s not what you should feel.”

Those words made him lose the little sanity he had left. Bucky suddenly stood up, grabbed Natasha by her neck and slammed her head against the bar. Natasha groaned as she took his hand in hers, trying to get rid of his grip. Natasha’s right cheek was pressed on the bar. Bucky knew he didn’t have much time until the bartender kicked him out of there, so he leaned his head a bit and looked at Natasha’s eyes as he said: “Stop your bullshit Romanoff, because next time I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

Bucky left the bar with the idea of finding a twenty four hour store and buy all the alcohol he could possibly drink.

 

 

 

Suddenly, Kara got up of the bed when she heard a loud noise in the hallway. With a hand in her chest, feeling her heart beating rushed, scared, she tried to find out what was happening. Although her parents voice sounded in her head telling her not to move, she got out of bed and opened the door of the room. The light blinded her eyes for a few seconds but when her eyes got used to it, she found Bucky staggering down the hall.

She didn’t need to ask him anything to discover the obvious: he was drunk. Very drunk. And, apparently, at some point he had gotten into a fight because he had his face and hands covered in blood. Kara thought about getting back to sleep, although she knew she couldn’t go back to sleep, but after being sure Bucky was going to wake up everybody and maybe say something he shouldn’t, Kara went to help him.

When she appeared in Bucky’s sight, Bucky pulled her away. Or he tried as he told her to go to sleep.

“Bucky, come on. We need to get you to your room. You’re gonna wake up the rest of the Avengers and you don’t want them to ask you why you’re drunk, don’t we?” she whispered.

“Well, I’m drunk because of you,” he drawled as drunk people did. Kara stopped her movements and looked at him with wide open eyes.  “But I guess you know that, don’t you?”

Bucky didn’t wait for Kara to answer, he went on his way to his room, tripping over his own feet. Kara stood there for a few seconds, not knowing exactly what to do. She couldn’t leave him like that, she had to make sure he didn’t choke with his own tongue or did something stupid. So she followed him and when she got to his room, Bucky had already entered and he was fighting with his shoes.

“Go away, Kara.”

Kara tried not to feel hurt at that. Drunk or not, he didn’t want to see her.

“Why do you never listen?”

“What the hell did you do, Bucky?” she asked after seeing him better.

It wasn’t only his face full of blood, his stomach too. Kara could swear that despite the cut in the eyebrow, lip and fists, Bucky had a cute in his belly too.

“Don’t move, please.”

Kara hoped that Bucky hadn’t done anything stupid but in his state, he could have done anything. She went to the infirmary where she took a first aid kit and returned to his room. To her surprise, Bucky didn’t move from where he was. However, he looked more gaunt. He looked at Kara as she left the kit on the bed and went to the bathroom to grab a towel to clean the blood of his body.

Not knowing where she got the courage, Kara stood in front of him, grabbed his chin and forced him to raise his head. She pressed the white towel, which she had previously soaked in water, on his face. Bucky closed his eyes while exhaled a sigh. Kara though he would resist but he didn’t say or did anything.

“What did you do, Bucky?” she asked again in a mumble.

Bucky opened his eyes and stared at her. She took one of his hand and cleaned his fists.

“I got into a fight,” he answered.

“Why?”

“You know why.”

Kara didn’t answer because she didn’t know what to say. If he had really got drunk and got into a fight because of her, there was something Bucky wasn’t explaining. He couldn’t be doing that just because she had feelings for him. It wasn’t such a big deal. At least, not for her.

“I tried, you know?” she said. “I tried to forget you but I couldn’t. I don’t know why I feel what I feel but you can’t blame for that, Bucky” she confessed in a sigh. “You can be angry if you want. You can think whatever the hell you want but this is harder for me than for you. So stop acting like if you’re the one who is having a bad time because I’m the one who should be getting drunk and fighting people.”

Bucky didn’t dare to answer her, he continued looking at her.

“This is gonna itch,” she said as she put a bit of alcohol on a gauze.

Bucky didn’t move, he didn’t even complain when she put the gauze on his eyebrow.

“I fought with Natasha,” he confessed surprising Kara who stopped her movements. “She told me something I didn’t like.”

Kara didn’t know whether to ask or not but she assumed it was a good time to get information out of him.

“What did she tell you?”

“That I needed you more than you need me.”

Kara gasped. She looked at him with her mouth open and Bucky laughed bitterly as he got up from the bed and gently pushed her away from where she was.

“She is right. I’m never gonna stop needing you and that’s scary because I have never thought it would be you the one that I needed,” he muttered. “So you’re not the only one who should be getting drunk and fighting people.”

Kara couldn’t move from where she was, even when Bucky locked himself in the bathroom. Kara didn’t know what to think or what to feel. Was Bucky telling that because he was drunk or because he really meant it? Was the alcohol messing with her? Was it truth?

She felt a lump in her throat and in her stomach. She had always thought that when she heard something like that, she would be happy. But she didn’t feel that way, it didn’t feel good at all. She was feeling bad. Bad for Bucky because he was having a really hard time with her feelings. It wasn’t fair for him. And it was all her fault.

Kara left Bucky’s room more confused than she had ever been and when she looked up, she found Evan looking at her as he had just received a shot in his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I think I should explain myself a bit. It’s getting harder and harder for me to write this story. It’s not only because I don’t have time but because I read some of the chapter and I don’t think I gave all that I could give. I guess what I’m trying to say I don’t think it’s good. I don’t wanna play the victiom or anything, I just wanna express my feelings. I would like to know what you think of this. Like, what you really think. You don’t have to tell me nice things, I need constructive feedback. I won’t leave this story either, so don’t worry. I’m trying to make it better.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you like this chapter and I hope you understand what’s happening with Bucky. If not, I didn’t do my job! Thank you for reading, as always. I love y’all so much.


	11. Eleven

 

“I miss you. No, let me correct that. I miss the old you, the one that cared about me.”

 

* * *

 

Bucky closed his eyes tightly when the first rights of lights entered his room. He took a hand on his head and pressed it hard, as if that way he couldn’t stop the pain that was beginning to spread across his head. But he knew better than anyone it wouldn’t stop. Maybe if he took painkillers it would give him a rest, but it will come back angry than ever a few hours later.

With the certainty that he wouldn’t sleep again if he didn’t take some pill, he got up from the bed. Or at least, he tried. The room began to spin around him when he sat up and he felt like vomiting. Bucky closed his eyes again and growled something unintelligible. After all he had drunk, he knew he wouldn’t wake up as fresh as a rose. But neither had thought he would feel like dying.

With difficulty, he got up from bed, he dragged his feet to the bathroom and when he turned the lights on, he had to close his eyes again as he muttered a _fuck_ full of frustration. When his eyes got used to the light, he looked himself in the mirror. A knackered Bucky was looking at him, with dark bags under his eyes and with a bruised face. At the level of his stomach, a large bloodstain occupied most of his shirt.

He didn’t need lift his shirt to know that the cut in his stomach didn’t look good. It was for that reason he turned his back to the mirror, took his shirt, pants and boxers off, and got into the shower with the intention to erase any trace of the previous night.

But the memories seemed unwilling to leave his mind and although he closed his eyes and wished with all his might he could rest for a moment, as the water ran through his naked body, the conversation he had with Natasha played over and over in his head.

 

_“You’ve been days without eating, without sleeping, getting drunk every night. How much do you think it will take Steve to realize his best friend is a walking mess?” Natasha yelled at him as he staggered down the street, looking for a liquor store. “And how do you think it will take Steve to realize it’s because of his daughter, Barnes?”_

_Bucky stopped suddenly and turned around abruptly, causing Natasha to stop too a few feet from where he was._

_“I’m sorry, okay?” he yelled back. “I’m sorry. What do you want me to do? I can’t help it."_  

_And those were the words Natasha didn’t want to hear. Words that were equally dangerous than destructive._

_“I forbid you. I forbid you, do you hear me?” she hissed as she grabbed him by the neck of his shirt._

_Bucky made her let go of him with a slap in her hand._

_“You’ll lose everything if you go down this road, Bucky. Everything. Are you willing to do so?”_

 

Not even without a drop of alcohol going through his veins, Bucky managed to understand what Natasha wanted to tell him. But it was the straw that broke the camel and made him lose the little sanity he had left the night before.

Fighting with Natasha hadn’t solved anything nor made him feel better. On the contrary, it made him feel more miserable than he already was. And things hadn’t improved when he came back to the base and found Kara. He had wanted her to leave him alone but her insistence on ensuring he reached his bed safely, made him realize Kara wouldn’t stop feeling what she felt for him. Maybe, one day, her infatuation for him disappeared but her love never would.

Ignoring her hadn’t worked. Regardless of what she felt for him, Bucky had realized he missed Kara a lot to keep avoiding her. And maybe Natasha was right and he needed her more than he thought, although he couldn’t quite understand what that meant.

When he got out of the shower, he grabbed the first aid kit and decided if he didn’t want to bleed out to death, he should suture the wound. So that was what he did.

The first thing he did when he entered the kitchen was grab some water and take a painkiller for the headache. Then, he served himself a cup of coffee.

Without Steve and Anna there, the Avengers base was too quiet. Somehow, that couple filled that place with happiness, smiles and jokes. It was more Anna than Steve but, however it was, Bucky knew he would miss them those weeks.

He had no idea where the rest of his team were and if he thought about it deeply, he didn’t care. He didn’t want to give explanations about why his face was full of bruises.

When he finished the cup of coffee, he decided to go to the gym, where he knew he would find Kara. He wasn’t sure what he intended to do or say once he got there, but he was aware he couldn’t keep ignoring Kara. Both of them had to find a way to live together without raising further suspicion. Sooner or later, Kara would stop feeling what she felt and they could go back to the way they were before all that happened. And there was nothing Bucky wanted more than that.

To his surprise, Natasha wasn’t at the gym. Kara was the only one who was there, hitting a punching bag with her firsts and feet. Her concentration didn’t allow her to see Bucky was there and it was only when she took a break that saw him out of the corner of her eye.

Bucky saw the confusion on Kara’s face as she turned slowly to face him. Her cheeks were red from the effort and her blond hair was stuck in her forehead because of the sweat. Her chest rose and fell at the speed of light and if it wasn’t because she was too tired to say any word, Bucky was sure she’d asked what he was doing there.

“You need to work in your footwork,” he pointed out. “You have to keep moving, you can’t provide a stationary target."

Kara gasped but she finally shut her mouth when she found nothing to say. She had many questions, like what he was doing there and what was what he wanted. Kara had thought that after the conversation they had the night before, Bucky was gonna ignore her for life. For anything in the world she had expected him to appear at the gym and give her advice on how she had to train.

“Okay…” she finally said with a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

“Never cross-step. This can put you in a unbalanced and indefensible position.”

She nodded. She appreciated his advice but it was still strange and uncomfortable he was there. Bucky had openly stated he disagreed with her becoming an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.. So why he was helping her?

“Okay, let’s practice” he said right at the time Kara was opening her mouth to ask him what he was doing there.

“What?” Kara asked in a whisper. She felt stupid with all the confusion she was feeling. She didn’t understand what was happening.

“It’s great you’re working with Natasha but not all your attackers will be the same height and weight. You have to practice, Kara.”

Kara couldn’t deny he was right.

“What kind of practice are we talking? The one where we don’t give the best of us or the one where we show what we can do?”

“If you really want this, you’ll have to accept people is gonna punch and hit you like there’s no tomorrow. I’m not gonna hurt you but I won’t be easy on you either,” he pointed out. “So show me what you can do.”

Kara wanted to ask him why he was doing that, what reasons lay behind his actions. Days had passed since he talked to her for the last time and now he acted like nothing had happened. Although she couldn’t say he was acting as always. Bucky was distant. Yes, he was speaking to her but he didn’t do it in the same way. It was clear he was uncomfortable around her.

While Kara put her hair in a messy bun, Bucky observed her as he stretched his neck and arms. He couldn’t deny Kara had changed. She was not longer the child he picked up in his arms, nor the girl who looked at him with her blue eyes and begged him to braid her hair. Maybe Kara wasn’t a woman yet but she was becoming one.

“Okay, I’m ready” she said as she positioned in an attack position.

“Okay, let’s do this.”

Bucky hadn’t lied when he said he wasn’t to make it easy, nor he lied when he said he wouldn’t hurt her. Bucky’s blows were firm, strong. Kara discovered fighting him was harder than with Natasha. Maybe it was because of his weight or musculature. However it was, Kara found it hard to keep up. But she didn’t give up, she didn’t want to give Bucky a reason to tell her she wasn’t going to be a good agent. So she keep giving the best of her, until she hit Bucky’s stomach and he grunted like a wounded animal.

“I’m okay,” he said as he took some steps back.

“Did you ask someone to look at that wound?” Kara asked as she grabbed a towel, ending that way the training.

“What do you think?” he answered with a sarcastic tone. “I’ll be fine, it’s not the first time I fight with someone.”

“But it’s your first time being a complete moron,” Kara finally exploded.

Bucky raised his eyebrows, surprised by Kara’s answer.

“What the hell are you doing here, Bucky? I thought you and me weren’t talking anymore. And it’s great you’re trying to help with my training but I also thought you didn’t want me doing this. So excuse me if I’m bit confused by your actions.”

“I don’t know, Kara. I don’t fucking know what I’m doing,” he sighed. “You said things didn’t need to change so I’m trying to act normally.”

Bucky was right, she had said it. But everything had changed too much to act normally.

“I don’t think we’ll ever be the ones we were before,” she admitted with a mumble. “Things had changed between us and yes, I still admire you. Yes, I still want to feel like I can trust you with anything but the truth is you hurt me, Bucky. And I can’t act like nothing had happened. Not right now.”

Of course she wanted to have the same relationship with Bucky but after much thinking, she knew it wasn’t going to happen. Bucky wouldn’t forget what she felt for him and that would always be an impediment.

“So I messed it all up,” he whispered.

“We both did,” she pointed out taking some of the blame. “It’s okay, tho. We’ll be okay.”

Kara saw Bucky’s eyes sparkled more than usual. He took a hand on his face and shook his head. He walked towards Kara, placed a hand on the back of her head and kissed her forehead. She closed her eyes and stayed that way for a while.

Finally, Bucky broke the kiss and moved away from her.

“Natasha has taught you well, you’ll be a great agent. If that is what you really want to do, go for it. Don’t worry about your parents. When the moment come, I’ll talk to them if you want to.”

“You’re okay with it?” she asked with surprise.

Bucky shrugged.

“It’s your life, Kara. And you’ll be eighteen in a few months so what can I do?” he said as a smile began to take shape in the corner of his lips. “Go for it, you’re a natural.”

Kara didn’t realize she had been holding her breath until Bucky left the gym. When he had appeared there, Kara hadn’t thought they would end that way. It hadn’t gone bad nor good but it was the beginning of a new relationship. It might not be the same as before but it was something and it was enough for Kara.

A knock at the gym’s door pulled her from her thoughts. When Kara looked up, she found Evan. She couldn’t help but let out a sigh. When she had found him the night before, apart from a look full of pain, Evan hadn’t said anything else. Kara knew she had to talk to him and end things for both’s sake but apparently, he had gone in her search before she did.

“So you and Bucky are talking again,” he said.

“Yeah, kinda” Kara answered.

“Great,” he mumbled in a sarcastic tone.

“Evan…” Kara started to say.

“Don’t you even dare,” he hissed. “I know what you want to do. In a way, I’ve known it all along. I thought I could change your mind but I guess I’m a fool for thinking that you would stop having feelings for Bucky“ he confessed. “I don’t even know why you made me go through this if you knew it wasn’t going to disappear.”

“I didn’t know it.”

“Did you even try?”

“Come on, don’t be like that. You know I’ve tried. But--”

“I thought you were better than this.”

Kara gasped but Evan didn’t let her talk.

“He’s gonna hurt you, you know? He’s gonna make you miserable and it’s gonna be your fault. I don’t know what you’re expecting to happen but you would never have a normal relationship with him. Even if he develops feelings for you, what do you think is gonna happen?” he sapt. “He’s your father’s best friend. He’s way too old for you. You would never be able to walk around holding hands with him. You would never be able to kiss him in front of everyone. And it will be a surprise if your father doesn’t kill him before that happens. Are you willing to ruin everything just because some stupid crush, Kara?”

Kara couldn’t help but let the tears fall down her face. Evan’s words were hurting her. His bluntness, his hate for her and for what she felt for Bucky were tearing her up.

“And don’t worry, you don’t need to break up with me. I’m breaking up with you, I should have never accepted you to try anything with me.”

Evan didn’t even wait for Kara to defend herself, he turned around and left. Although, there was something she could have said?

The only thing that came out of Evan’s mouth were truths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, thank y'all for your nice words on the last chapter. It meant the world to me and it helped me a lot. I was kinda unsure about what I was writing and I really needed your words. 
> 
> I also want to tell you I edited the whole story so there are some changes. 
> 
> And again, sorry for the wait but I have a lot of work. This chapter is shorter but it was focused on Bucky so, there was no much more to say than that! And I love y'all!


	12. Twelve

 

“We looked at each other a little too long to be _just friends_.”

 

* * *

 

 

Kara shook her hand with excitement when her mother appeared on the laptop screen. Her skin was tanned and, although she always seemed happy, it seemed Rome was sitting her extremely well.

During that week, Kara had spoken to her mother on the phone a few times. They had short conversations but it was enough to tell each other they were fine. Nevertheless, that morning her mother had insisted on making a video call. Anna wanted to see how her daughter was.

They talked for a few minutes about how the trip was going and it seemed her parents were having a good time. Kara envied them a little. After all, she had once been a part of that journey. However, she was glad her parents had some time alone, away from all the problems they had in New York.

Things seemed to have calmed down a bit. After they broke into their house and Roger’s family had to move into the Avengers base, there were no more attacks. The Avengers were still looking for the responsibles but without any movement, it was hard to keep looking. Kara couldn't deny she was afraid but she knew she couldn't live with fear all her life.

“How are things with Evan?” Anna asked to her daughter with a soft smile on her lips.

Kara couldn’t help but sigh as she put a hand on her face. Things with Evan were more than bad, were horrible. Those days had only helped to clarify her best friend didn’t want anything to do with her. She knew he was looking to go back to Europe after his parent’s wedding and it was killing her inside. Maybe, she didn’t love Evan as more than a friend but he was still her best friend and she still needed him.

Although she had spoken to her mother after Evan left her, she hadn’t told her what had happened. In a way, she felt guilty for all she had done to him. Unwittingly, Kara had hurt him and she, more than anyone, knew that broken hearts were difficult to heal.

“He broke up with me,” she finally said with a sad smile on her lips. Kara saw her mother hesitate. “It’s okay. I’m… I’m not okay but I just accepted it was something that was going to happen either way. I was going to left him but he left me instead.”

She hated the look of pity her mother was giving her. She didn’t need her sympathy, she needed her to tell her she had asked for it, that was what happened when you played with someone’s heart.

“He’s going to forgive you. Give him time,” her mother said, surprising her.

Natasha appeared in the gym minutes later and Kara said goodbye to her mother with the promise that every day, until they returned from their trip, she was going to send her a text message telling her how she was.

For Kara’s surprise, after the day Bucky came down to talk to her and try to solve the big problem that was between the two of them, Natasha kept trining her. They didn’t talk about the argument she had with Bucky, nor the fight. If Bucky was bad, Natasha was worse. She had a swollen cheek and multiples bruises on her body. But Kara didn’t want to know anything. Bucky said they had fought because of her and she could imagine which was Natasha’s position.

Kara’s trainings during that week had helped her to finish learning techniques of attack and defense. Kara was surprised by her progress and for the first time since she had started training, she believed she could pass the tests.

Finally, things seemed to be slightly better with Bucky. He had stopped avoiding her and although they didn’t speak as before, they shared some words from time to time.

It hurt her things had gone this way. In less than a month, Kara had lost two of the most important people in her life. And the only one she could blame was herself.

It has been said time heals all wounds. But she didn’t agree. Wounds never disappeared. Maybe they could forgive her for what she felt and did, but she knew trying to keep living as nothing had happened was hypocritical. Now, what was left to do was learn how to live with what had happened and move on.

With or without them.

 

Bucky hang up the phone as Kara entered the kitchen. She raised a hand in greeting and continued her way to the refrigerator. He watched her in silence as he thought about the conversation he just had with Steve. Kara and Evan had broken up and although he knew he should feel bad for her, he couldn’t help but feel certain relief. She seemed okay. He hadn’t seen her cry and she didn’t talk about it; but he wasn’t sure if it was something Kara wanted to talk to him.

Things between the two of them were on unfamiliar ground. And the truth was Bucky didn’t know how he felt about it. His head was a mess and although he tried to clear his head, he couldn’t. He needed her. And that was something he couldn't deny anymore. It had taken much time to accept it but it was true, Bucky needed Kara more than she’ll ever need him. And although he didn’t understand how that could had happened, there were some things it couldn’t be understood, it simply had to be accepted. So he accepted it, he accepted he needed he.

But, what did that mean?

“You didn’t tell me you and Evan had broken up,” he suddenly said.

Kara stopped her movements and Bucky waited for her to look at him. He wanted to see her. He wanted to see her face. But she didn’t turn around.

“Why? So you could tell me you were right? That Evan wasn’t a good guy? That he was an asshole? Because he wasn’t, Bucky. Evan was nothing like that.”

And that was the moment she tilted her head. She put her hands on the counter, trying to vent some tension.

“He left me because I hadn’t enough guts to leave him. He left me because I can’t fucking love him. God damnit,” she mumbled.

And although she didn’t materialize it in words, Bucky knew he also left her for what she felt for him. Evan knew. Evan knew Kara was in love with him.

“No, I’d have just asked you how you were” he answered. He might not like Evan but he wasn’t stupid. He cared more about how Kara was than anything else. “He’s a smart guy, he won’t let himself lose you for something like that.”

“How do you know that?” she spat.

“Because I wouldn’t.”

Kara parted her lips, surprised by his answer and by the expression of regret Bucky had in his face. Regret for letting the words escape his mouth, regret because he was getting on a road that had no turning back. And he knew where he was getting into but he couldn’t stop.

“I’ve talked to Natasha,” he said after a while, looking away. He couldn’t keep looking at her because the lump that was forming in his throat was choking him. “And we both agreed you need to practice with guns.”

Kara needed some seconds to remove the tightness she had felt in her chest and stomach after what Bucky had said that to her. Perhaps, at some other time of her life, she would have found more exciting to learn how to use a gun but, at that time, Kara wasn’t sure she wanted to go to a shooting range with Bucky. And that thought made her realize she was a mess, she had no idea how to feel around him. It was clear her feelings for him were the same: she loved him. But, what the hell was doing Bucky?

Finally, she nodded. Sooner or later, she would have to learn how to use them and now that her parents weren’t there, it seemed like the best moment.

“Go get dressed, then.”

Kara wasn’t sure what kind of clothing people wore when they went to shooting ranges, so she chose to take the simplest she found: a gray shirt and black skinny ripped jeans. She put her hair in a ponytail and went downstairs, where Bucky was waiting for her.

“I should warn you, I don’t like guns” she pointed out as they left the base.

Bucky laughed softly.

“I don’t think you have a choice.”

While Bucky took her to the shooting range, Kara though why Bucky had become so important to her. Every woman who ran into Bucky stared at him without batting an eyelid. There was no denying he was a handsome and attractive man. But he wasn’t only that, he was also stylish, smart and self-confident. Kara was surprised the simplicity he gave off; nothing created him anxiety and he always knew what to say.

However, Bucky was much more than a pretty face. He was… He was the guy who had helped her when her schoolmates had bullied her for being the daughter of who she was. He was the guy who had accompanied her throughout her life, who had advised her, who had made her laugh, who had listened to her and who had been at her side when she most needed it. Bucky had been much more than anyone else who was in her life, even Evan. With Bucky, everything was different. There was no denying there was a palpable connection between the two of them. With just a look, they exactly knew what the other wanted or needed.

Kara had never wanted to use the word out loud, but she felt Bucky was her soulmate. Since she was conscious, Bucky was the person with whom she had felt an immediate connection. A connection so strong that she was drawn to him in a way she had never experienced before (and she had never experienced again with another person). And as time passed, Kara had felt a love so deep, strong and complex that she was sure she was never going to feel a love like that for nobody. And that was why she knew she would never forget Bucky if they continued with that tug-of-war. She knew Bucky was acting weird for her feelings for him, but that didn’t justify the fact he had told her he needed her, nor what he had said minutes before in the kitchen.

When they entered the shooting range, Kara felt a knot in her stomach. Although she had seen all kind of weapons, she had never held a gun and when Bucky offered it to her, she felt a tightness in her chest.

“Are you okay?” he asked tenderly.

“Yes,” she nodded quickly, grabbing the gun. She didn’t expect it to be so heavy but after holding it for a while, she became accustomed to its weight.

“What I’m going to say to you now it’s gonna sound stupid, but always check your gun is loaded. Sometimes the most stupid accidents happen because we always believe the gun is loaded when it’s not” Bucky explained to her and Kara wondered if Bucky had ever been shoot for assuming the gun was loaded. “Okay, now open your hand to expose the webbing between your index finger and thumb. Take the gun and put it into the web of your dominant hand. With your thumb on one side to the grip, keep your middle, ring and pinky fingers curled securely around the other side just below the trigger guard. Like this,” he said grabbing her gun and placing it into her hands, showing her exactly how it should be placed.

Kara felt her heart skip a beat when she felt Bucky’s hand grabbing hers. She pressed her lips together tightly, trying to stay calm. Bucky guided her body with his own, facing the target. He placed his foot between Kara’s and separated it so her feet be shoulder-width apart. And just like that, their bodies were _almost_ together.

“Steady the gun with your other hand,” he said and his voice sounded so close to her ear that she felt a shiver ran down her spine. “And make sure all your fingers are clear of the slide or hammer because it hurts like a bitch if it bites you.”

Kara was hurt by the mere thought.

“And control your breathing,” he mumbled. “Calm your body. Take a deep breath and hold it. From the time you hold your breath to the time you pull the trigger should be short but not rapid or hurried.”

Kara lowered her hands and turned around with a sigh, making Bucky let go of her hands. She found him more close to her body than she had felt. Bucky missed her body instantly and he heated himself for that thought.

“Do you really think when four guys try to kill me I’ll stop and take a breath?”

Bucky pressed his lips together, trying not to laugh.

“Probably not, but there aren’t four guys here and you’re learning how to fire a gun.”

“I will probably freak out.”

“You won’t,” Bucky assured her. “You took a bullet for me, remember?”

“Yeah, but that’s different… I was thinking of saving you, not shooting that crazy woman.”

“It’s the same. When you point a gun to someone it will be because you’re defending someone, your country or yourself. You won’t point a gun to someone just because you want to kill him. Or at least, you shouldn’t" he pointed out.

Kara sighed again.

“Okay, let’s do this.”

Kara felt pretty stupid when after the fifth shot, her target was perfect. Although Bucky hadn’t laughed, she saw how his smirk was trying to make his way through his lips. If she couldn’t touch the target, she couldn’t get into S.H.I.E.L.D. An agent who didn’t know how to shoot, where had you seen that?

“Relax, Kara” Bucky finally said. “Just follow through. Think of the gun as an extension of your arm.”

And that was when she managed to hit the target. It wasn’t a perfect shot and, without a doubt, Kara wouldn’t hurt much her attacker if she continued that way. But it was something. Kara shouted with excitement and Bucky started laughing when she went straight to his arms. He wrapped her body with his own and kissed her forehead. They stayed like that longer than they should, until Bucky muttered she had to try it again. However, he had wished not doing it because he wanted to have her in his arms more time.

After a couple of hours at the shooting range, they decided it was enough for that day and they went to grab something to eat. Not wanting to get into a restaurant, they sat on a the terrace of a cafe and both ordered a sandwich.

“Have you killed someone on purpose?”

That question caught him off guard. Bucky fixed his blue eyes on Kara, who seemed really concerned. As he observed Kara at the shooting range, he realized she wasn't comfortable. He didn’t blame her, guns weren’t something to have fun with.

“Is the answer going to change the image you have of me?”

Kara laughed and shook her head. Whatever Bucky did, she wasn’t going to see him differently. But Bucky hadn’t asked that as a joke. For some reason, he would hate himself if, suddenly, Kara saw him differently.

“Then yes, I have” he answered. “But I went to the World War II, I fought HYDRA and I was (and I am) Captain America’s best friend. So it’s kinda my job.”

“You’re my dad’s hitman,” Kara joked, making him laugh. “God, he’s going to kill you if he finds out you have been helping me with this.”

Bucky was sure Steve was going to kill him for thousands of reasons more. He spent a lot of time with Kara, so that wasn’t something unusual (besides of what they were doing at that time, that it wouldn’t be something Steve liked). But everything that had happened these past weeks, plus the confusion of feelings and thoughts he had, it was very far away from normal. And he knew Steve wouldn’t understand that.

Bucky didn’t want to see his best friend angry, let alone with him. And the fact he knew it was wrong, and he continued doing it, was even more dangerous. He had no idea what he was doing and yet he didn’t want to be separated from Kara. He had already tried and he had failed. And it had almost killed him in the process.

“I don’t want to go to the base,” Kara suddenly said.

“Okay and what do you want to do?” Kara smiled and Bucky raised his eyebrows. “Whatever it is what you’re thinking, I don’t like it already.”

Kara laughed.

“You would like it. Do you trust me?”

“No,” Kara looked at him angry and that time it was Bucky who laughed. “Okay, I trust you. Where are you taking me?”

Kara got up from the chair, stood beside him and extended her hand. Bucky shook his head as a smile appeared on his lips, he stood up and held her hand. The way his hand adapted her small one, frightened him and when she pulled him to follow her, he felt the need to stop her and tell her they had to go back to the base. But he couldn’t do it because, deep down, he didn’t want to.

When Kara stood in front of a nightclub, Bucky frowned. He had never imagined Kara was one of those girls who liked nightclubs.

“You’ll have a good time, trust me” she assured him.

But Bucky had his doubts. He liked music and dance but not how the kids did it nowadays. For him, the music they listened and the way they danced was a sacrilege for him. But Kara didn’t accept a no for an answer so she pulled his hand and forced him to follow her inside. And what he saw there was the last thing he expected to see. Everyone was dancing in silence, screaming different words and acting like real idiots.

“Are they on drugs?” he asked really confused, making Kara laugh.

“Put this on,” she said offering him a pair of headphones.

“What…?”

“Put them on,” she insisted.

When Bucky put on the headphones, the music started to sound in his ears. That was when he understood everything. Kara smiled in front of him and yelled him he could change the music if he didn’t like it. She put on her headphones and began moving to the beat of the music it was playing in her ears. And Bucky couldn’t help but laugh.

He loved see her like that. Carefree, relaxed, happy. And that was when he realized he didn’t want to see her another way. Bucky wanted to see Kara happy, enjoying her life and being… just her. Because that was what he loved more about her, that she was unique. And for him, Kara was perfect. And there was nothing he didn’t like about her, not even when she got something firmly into her head. The way she frowned her forehead and wrinkled her nose… It drove him crazy.

Bucky took a hand to his face when he realized what he was feeling for Kara was no longer a brotherly love. And although he didn’t want, he got scared. The realization had crushed him because he couldn’t love her. It was wrong in every single way.

As he stood there, watching her laughing and dancing around the disco, shame took over his body. All this time, he was only pretending he didn’t love her in order to protect himself. But everything he had done, the need to push her away, the need to fight against Natasha to prove her he didn’t feel nothing unusual towards Kara, had made him look pathetic. And Natasha knew his true feelings for Kara, because she had said it.

Was he willing to lose everything for her?

Bucky took off his headphones and went out of there as if the devil was chasing him. The knot that had formed in his throat didn’t let him breath and the sensation of horror and disdain that were running through his body were making him feel sick. He didn’t know what he expected to do when he got out of the disco but what he didn’t expect was Kara getting out out there as fast as him.

“Bucky?” she asked with confusion.

He didn’t want to turn around. He didn’t want to see her, he didn’t want to look at her because he knew he couldn’t control himself when he did it. But she insisted.

“Bucky, what’s wrong?”

And that time, she touched his arm. Bucky pushed her away, seeing the expression of pain on Kara’s face right away. Bucky felt the urge to apologize, to tell her he pushed her away because she touching him was dangerous. But maybe he should let her think he disgust her. Because it was wrong he felt something for her. He couldn’t feel anything for his best friend’s daughter.

“You have to stop,” she told him in defeat. Kara was tired and hurt. _God_ , he hated see her like that. “You gotta stop talking to me one day and pretend everything's okay and then looking at me like I’m garbage. I don’t know what’s wrong with you this time or if it’s the same as always. Whatever it is, you gotta stop. Because I can’t take it anymore, Bucky.”

Bucky saw the tiredness on her expression. The pain, the hopeless. But he didn't open his mouth and Kara  shook her head as she turned around with the intention to get away from there and from him. And that was when he knew he couldn't let her leave. Bucky whispered her name, stopping her. Kara didn’t turn, not immediately. 

“Kara,” he repeated.

“What?” she said with tiredness as she turned around.

Bucky knew if he didn’t say anything, he would lose her forever. And the thought of not being able to spend moments like the one they had just lived in the silent disco, scared him.

Kara thought it was the end. Or Bucky told her what the hell was wrong or she, herself, would put an end to whatever was happening between the two of them. Because it was true, she couldn’t take it anymore. The confusion was overwhelming her and if Bucky kept pulling at her, she’ll come back to him. Because she loved him and she was always going to love him, even when she didn’t want to.

Bucky walked over her and cupped her face with his hands. Kara gasped and felt her legs became jelly. If Bucky let her go, she would fall. The palm of his hand on her cheeks created a pleasant warm, the kind of warm that even if it was really hot outside, you wouldn’t stop feeling. And the way his blue eyes were looking at her, made her feel intimidated. Their lips were almost touching. They were so close, yet they never quite made it together. Kara was feeling how her body felt attracted to him and she had to make a big effort not to fill the space between the two of them. If he made the wrong move, her lips would be glued to his and there was nothing she wanted more. And if Bucky was smart, he had to know. He had to know that was what she wanted.

“What do you want?” she whispered, her voice cracking. It was hard to hear anything else than the beating of her own heart.

The words Bucky had said that night, the night she found him drunk in the base, replayed in her head over and over again.

“ _I’m never gonna stop needing you and that’s scary because I have never thought it would be you the one that I needed_ ”.

What did he mean by that? She knew the meaning of every word but the meaning of the whole sentence, coming from Bucky, had her confused. What did he wanted to say?

“What do you want?” she repeated.

Bucky could see she was nervous. Her lips trembled slightly and her breathing was heavy. He knew what he was doing was dangerous but, somehow, he couldn’t stop. His head kept sending orders but his body refused to comply.

“You’re a coward,” she spat angrily as she raised her arms and hit his chest with all the strength she could use. Bucky grabbed her hands but she continued hitting him as she repeated those three words.

“Stop it,” he asked almost inaudibly.

“You’re a coward, Bucky” she repeated, trying to get rid of his grip but she only managed to hurt her. “What do you want?” she asked again as she stopped moving and tears fell down her cheeks.

This time, Bucky let the heart silence reason. This time, Bucky let the words come out of his mouth without thinking or worrying about the consequences. This time, for the first time in a long time, he said what he really felt, not what he should say.

“I want you.”

That confession let her breathless. For a moment, Kara felt her heart stop. Bucky wasn’t looking at her anymore, he was staring at the floor, completely defeated after confessing the unspeakable. He admitted what was forbidden.

Kara stood on her tiptoes, grabbed his head and pressed her lips into his, And she kissed him with all the aching longing that being this close to him evoked. She kissed him in ways she had never imagined she could kiss him. And when he began to kiss her back, cupping her face and depending the kiss more, with his mouth moving with fierce and tenderness, Kara met happiness.

Both had to break the kiss short after to breath and, at that time, Bucky realized what he had done. He pressed his lips tightly as his head screamed all sorts of profanities. He pushed himself away from Kara, as if she suddenly was fire and he was burning. He saw her gasp but she decided not to say anything. He turned around and walked away, hating himself more than ever and looking for a way to erase what he had done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, loves!
> 
> This chapter was difficult to write and although I would have wait a little longer, I realized I couldn't put more chapters in between. So, this is it. This is what you all have been waiting for. And I don't know if it how you imagined it but it certainly is how I imagined it. I didn't expect their first kiss to be beautiful because, honestly, I'm not sure Bucky would have enjoyed it. He has mixed feelings and he had realized he feels something for Kara, so that's an unknown territoy for him.
> 
> And as always, I'm sorry you have to wait too much between chapters but I'm trying my best. Now I'm going to Rome so I won't be able to write in a while. But I'll try to write another chapter by the end of September. I hope you enjoyed this. Thank you for your amazing support, I love y'all!


	13. Thirteen

 

_“Actually, I can.”_

 

* * *

 

 

It was one thing to make a mistake; it was another thing to keep making it. Three days had passed since Bucky had left the Avengers base trying to find ways to erase what he had done, as well as trying to avoid an encounter with Kara. He knew he was making a mistake, that even if he crossed the ocean and settled on the other side of the word, he wasn’t going to forget what he had done. Basically, because he didn’t want to. Because having to do one thing and wanting to do it, were two entirely different things. And Bucky didn’t want to forget that kiss, he didn’t want to forget Kara and, above all, he didn’t want to put thousands of miles between the two of them. He didn’t want to and he couldn’t do it. But he knew what he had done was a mistake, an unforgivable mistake and he also knew he couldn’t do it again.

So he was in conflict, his heart and his head were fighting an impossible battle, a battle that whoever won, wouldn’t satisfy him. Because there wasn’t a right answer in that mess, all of the answers were wrong.

Steve was going to kill him if he discovered what he had done and, a part of him, wanted him to find out. He wanted his best friend to punch him until he lost consciousness because, maybe, this was the only way his heart and his head reached an agreement. Perhaps for that reason he had explained to Natasha what he had done, because he hoped she would kill him. But she haven’t done it. Quite the contrary, she had only looked at him with disappointment, had turned around and left him alone in the kitchen, where his thoughts were trying to make him feel even worse than he already felt.

Back at the Avengers base, things were a little turned upside down. While Pepper had the brilliant idea to welcome Steve and Anna with a small welcoming party —according to Pepper, the team morale had been very depressed after the attacks and the Avengers needed to smile and have fun a bit before the wedding—, the others were looking for ways to slope off.

“Nobody is going to say no to my future wife. Understood?” Tony threatened his colleagues. And even if they hadn’t received that threat, no one would have dared to go against Pepper. They all knew better.

Meanwhile, Kara was unable to stop thinking about what she had done. She had kissed Bucky and although he had responded and at that time she felt like she could touch the sky with the tips of her fingers, reality had fallen on her like a bucket of cold water. What had she achieved with that? Nothing, because Bucky was scared and he had run away again. They were back at the beginning but Kara had the feeling they were in a worse point.

Kara couldn’t keep but sight when she came out of the shower. She was exhausted, physically and psychologically. The trainings with Natasha were becoming harder; Kara had even some bruises in her ribs. And weapons… Well, after Bucky, no one else had helped her to learn more about guns and she didn’t feel too confident about picking one and train on her own.

Her parents arrived from Rome that same day and although she really wanted to see them, their return meant she had to start preparing herself to tell them what their plans for the future were. She knew she had time after the wedding, that was the date she had set, but that didn’t make things any easier. And even more when there was another another thing she had to say and it would like even less than the other.

With the towel covering her naked body, Kara let herself fall into her bed and covered her face with her hands. At what point her life had become a constant of being against to all who loved her? Because for more she tried, the only thing she was clear was that she was going to hurt those around her.

When Bucky entered the Avengers base that day, he didn’t go unnoticed by any of her teammates. His look was a total mess. He had dark circles under his blue eyes, he hadn’t shaved his beard and although he looked very sober, no one doubted he had drunk more than one beer.

“Don’t be so sad, Barnes. Your boyfriend comes back today” Tony joked, earning a look from Pepper.

“Ha-ha, very funny Stark” he replied.

“Are you okay, mate?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, don’t worry. Nothing a shower can’t fix.”

His teammates looked how his friend walked to his room with concern.

“What’s wrong with him?” Clint asked.

“Probably he hasn’t get over the fact the girl he was dating wanted to kill him.”

“Tony!” Pepper exclaimed.

“What? I’m joking. Besides, it’s Barnes who we are talking about. He probably had a tough night. He’s fine, don’t worry about him.”

Natasha, who had been awfully quiet throughout the conversation, left the room and followed Barnes to his room. He didn’t even turned around when the Black Widow entered the room behind him, the truth was he expected her to realize he didn’t want to talk. Although he knew she wouldn’t go anywhere until she had said what she had to say.

“You’re playing with fire, Barnes” Natasha warned him.

Bucky took some seconds before answering.

“I asked for your help some days ago Romanoff and the only thing you did was give me a disappointed look and leave the room. I don’t want your help now.”

“What help, Bucky? What help are you looking for? What do you want? Do you want me to hit you until you lose your memory? Do you want me to kill you? What the fuck do you want me to do? I told you I forbade you to fall in love with Kara and you didn’t listen.”

“I wish it was that easy! I wish you could forbid me!” he yelled and for the first time, Natasha looked at him with something close to pity. “Fuck, she’s just a kid Natasha. I’m driving myself insane.”

Natasha felt the need to hug him, to tell him everything would be fine but truth was she didn't know if it would be fine. Bucky was on the edge of ruin everything he had achieved in his life, he was about to ruin the wonderful relationship he had with Steve for a simple… Infatuation. Natasha couldn’t understand how he had reached that point, how he could have fallen in love with a kid like Kara.

“You need to hurt her, Bucky” she mumbled, realizing what he had to do.

“What?”

“I know you don’t want to hurt Kara but you have to. That girl is madly in love with you, Bucky. And right now, I’m not sure how fucked up this situation is” Natasha pointed out. “You kissed her back so in her head she must think this, whatever it’s happening between you two, is possible. And it’s not, Bucky. You _can’t_ be with Kara. You _can’t_ be in love with her. And she has to know.”

“I’m not hurting Kara,” he firmly said.

“You don’t have a choice, Barnes. Or you hurt her or you let Steve discover what you have done and you lose everything you have. Even Kara.”

Natasha didn’t like that idea either. She hated being the evil character in that story. She hated to tell Bucky to hurt Kara because she didn’t want Kara to get hurt. But she was worried, she was worried everything went to hell for some feelings. Some feelings that maybe, someday, vanished.

Bucky hesitated. He hesitated again and again. But Natasha was right, it was the only choice. His actions had led him to make Kara believe there was a possibility between the two of them. And there wasn’t any. They _couldn’t_ be together. He _couldn’t_ be in love with her. It was wrong and he wasn’t going to allow this stupid mess to interfere the life he had created.

He knocked on the door of her room and waited for Kara to open it. It wasn’t long until she opened the door, with his blond hair wet and her cheeks slightly flushed by the rush to open the door. She was surprised to see him and she didn’t made an attempt to hide it. Before she could say anything, Bucky asked if he could come in.

“Yes, sure.”

Kara was quieter than she had initially imagined she would be. Although, truth be told, she hadn’t expected Bucky appear so soon. And, again, he didn’t look very good and that worried her. She gasped, willing to ask him what was going on but, again, Bucky didn’t let her speak.

“We have to talk about what happened the other day.”

Kara nodded. He was right, they had to talk about the kiss. She knew Bucky wouldn’t be very happy about it, she knew him too well to think otherwise but, after all, he kissed her and told her he _wanted_ her. That meant something, he couldn’t deny it just like that.

“Look, Kara.. You being who you are and me being who I am, nothing will ever happen between us. Do you understand? Never, never, never. Is that clear?”

She looked at him hoping he would tell her he was joking but for the first time in her life, Kara saw how Bucky’s eyes looked at her as she was one of the bad guys. He was telling the truth, nothing would happen between the two of them. She felt the pain spread through her chest and going to every corner of her body, she even felt the tears struggling to get out of her eyes. But she didn’t cry. She couldn’t cry in front of the man who repeatedly had broken her heart.

“It’s clear you have made your choice and there’s nothing I can do,” she answered with calm. “It’s clear you don’t want me in your life anymore and I have to find a way to live with that.”

Bucky gasped but, this time, was Kara who didn’t let him talk.

“It’s okay. I’ll be okay because I have to be.”

“Kara--”

“Can you go, please? I still have to do some things before my parents arrive.”

Bucky hesitated but he finally accepted Kara’s request and left her room. When the door closed, Kara felt how her tough-girl facade crumbled. She also felt a sob wanting to leave her body but she didn’t allow it.

“Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry” she repeated over and over again like a mantra.

And, at the end, Evan was right. Bucky would always hurt her, he would be the one making her miserable and the only one who could blame was herself.

Kara didn’t feel better when her parents entered the Avengers base and she neither felt better when she saw Bucky in one of the corners of the room, with a bottle of beer in his hands, trying to act normal. And Natasha was in the middle of the room, looking at both of them and hoping nothing would happen. Honestly, Kara felt like crap and that welcoming party seemed unnecessary and equally dangerous because it was clear that something wasn’t right.

The first one to hug her was her mother, who rocked her back and forth and repeated several time she had missed her. Then it was his father who, with a little more calm, hugged her and whispered to her ear: “Do I need to kill Evan?” Kara rolled her eyes, pushed him away a bit and warned him to behave himself. Steve laughed, hugged her again and told her he had missed her.

When her parents paid attention to the others, Kara saw how Steve frowned slightly when he saw Bucky at the other side of the room, alone. Before Steve could say anything, Bucky greeted him: “Hello, punk.” Steve laughed and as he went towards him, he answered him with: “Jerk.”

And then, she felt it. She felt the rage and the envy running through her body, holding hands, destroying all the maturity and wisdom she had. Bucky put Steve before her. Bucky was hurting her because he had decided he prefered to be friends with Steve than try to understand what he was feeling.

Kara felt her body tense, she clenched her fists and felt the need to punch something. Then, she felt someone grabbing her arm and saying: “Don’t.”

Kara let go from the grip and turned around, meeting Natasha green eyes. “Or what?” she spat.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Steve made himself heard, catching everyone’s attention and making them to notice Natasha and Kara in the middle of the room, staring at each other.

Natasha relaxed her body and put a pleasant smile on her lips as she said: “Nothing, Steve. Kara and I were--”

“In fact, there’s something I want to tell you. I was going to wait after Tony and Pepper’s wedding but I don’t think you should be the last ones to know the truth.”

Anna and Steve looked at each other with confusion, like the rest of the Avengers. Evan, who was sat on one of the sofas, covered his face with his hand as he shook his head and Bucky… Bucky was terrified. He didn’t understand what Kara wanted to do and if he didn’t know her any better, he would think she was trying to hurt his father.

“I’m training to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent” she dropped off.

Natasha let out a loud sigh, Bucky closed his eyes, not wanting to believe what had just happened and the rest… The rest were looking at Kara as she had gone mad. Anna, her mother, looked at one side and another trying to find something that told her it was all a big joke and Steve… Steve was equally hurt and angry. When had that happened? When had Kara taken that decision? Why was he finding out now? And who knew it? Because Kara had told she didn’t want them to be the _last ones_ to know the truth. Who the hell knew what her daughter wanted to be in the future?

“I know what you’re thinking: I haven’t thought this, I don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m just a kid who is confused about her future. But the truth is I’m not confused, I know what I’m talking about and I have thought about this” she pointed out. “I have been training for the last two months, I have been preparing myself for this test and this is what I want to do. I have been born for this. I know it. There’s nothing that fills me more than help and save others. I don’t want to waste more time in a stupid classe, studying something I hate to end up working behind a desk. I don’t want that, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering how it would be doing what I like. This is what I want and this is what I will do.”

“Great speech, Kara” Steve answered with anger. “But there’s no way in hell I’m gonna let you--”

“Well, dad. The thing is you don’t have to” she interrupted him, making him even angry. Kara have never been like this. She had never interrupted her father while he spoke. “There’s nothing you can say or do to change my mind. You can’t forbid me anything because in less than a month I’ll be eighteen. I’ll take S.H.I.E.L.D. test whether you like it or not. And as soon as I pass, I’m leaving.”

“What?!” Bucky exclaimed, feeling suddenly afraid, something that didn’t go unnoticed by anyone, not even by Steve or Anna.

“I’m done with this place. I’m leaving, and as far away as S.H.I.E.L.D. can send me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been more than a month since I posted the last chapter. I know, I'm very aware of it. Some thing happened in my life, not good ones and I had to take a break. I'm doing better now (a little bit sick, but nothing time and bed doesn't fix) but I have a major problem. I started my posgraduate studies, that means that with work and college I won't have time to write as much as before. And if we start from the basis that I had no time before... You can imagine where this is going. That doesn't mean I'm not gonna write ever again because I'm gonna keep writing but I have to put my studies first. So first, my studies and then write. So I will need patience from you, guys. Because this chapter was really difficult to write for me. I wasn't feeling inspired, I didn't know what to write, I felt pressure to post something ASAP and although I don't hate what I wrote, I don't like it either. It's a chapter that shows a part of Kara that we didn't see before, a part that it's important because she's still a kid after all. And it's shorter than the others but, seriously, I couldn't keep writing because I was going to end up hating everything.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you understand the meaning of this chapter. And I hope you don't hate me. Thanks for being there!


	14. Fourteen

 

“If you have chemistry, you only need another thing. Timing. But timing’s a bitch.”

 

* * *

 

The value of your voice does not increase the validity of your argument. But Captain America didn’t seem to agree with what Steve Maraboli had said because since Kara had confessed what she really wanted to do and what she had been doing these days he wasn’t there, he had begun to yell at her daughter trying to impose his reasons through the screams. But Kara didn’t give up and that made Steve lose his patience.

Kara watcher her father carefully, trying to discover his next move. She had never thought he would take her decision well, but she had never thought he would be like this. Although, truth be told, she hadn’t choose a good time to tell her true intentions. She’d let it out there because she was hurt and she wanted to hurt him, because he was the reason why Bucky had turned his back on her. Seen in this way, she had been immature but everyone accused her of being a child so, that was what kids really did.

“Do you want to do this? Do you really want to do this? Then let’s do it, Kara” Steve yelled.

Steve picked up the first thing he found in the kitchen, which was where they’d moved the conversation that Kara was sure everyone was listening with all the yelling, and he threw it at her. Kara reacted in time and moved away, not without drawing a look of surprise on her face.

“What are you doing?” she yelled.

“Don’t you wanna play superheroes? Then let’s play.”

And without letting her prepare, Steve approached her and attacked her. He never meant to hurt her, he just wanted to teach her a lesson but it was clear Kara hadn’t trained with someone as strong as him because when she tried to stop the first blow, he saw the expression of pain drawn on her face. And it wasn’t just physical pain, it was also psychological pain. Yes, she had stopped his blow but he had hurt her in the process. Steve lowered his arms, defeated, while Kara observed him in pain.

“Did you want to hurt me, dad? Is that what you really wanted?” she snapped at him as Bucky and Anna, followed by the rest, peered into the kitchen to discover what was happening. “I know what you’re thinking. I know what you are all thinking!” she exclaimed looking at the rest of the people with tears in her eyes. “Kara is crazy, Kara has lost her head. But I was born for this. I know it, and neither you,” she said pointing to her father, “or anyone will prevent me from taking those tests. And I’m going to pass because that’s what Rogers do. Because like it or not dad, I’m your daughter. And I’m doing what I’ve seen you do all this time.”

Kara left the kitchen finishing that conversation although it was far from being over. Those who were present looked at each other, trying to find some comforting words to say to their friends but they found nothing, because there was nothing to say. So, little by little, they left the kitchen. Everyone but Anna and Bucky.

“Did you know it?” Anna asked Bucky.

That question surprised Bucky because it came from Anna, not from Steve. He hesitated a few seconds and realized that it wasn’t worth it trying to lie because, sooner or later, they would discover that he had also been trying her. So he nodded and the look Steve gave to his best friend was of pure disappointment.

“I tried to make her change her mind but… This is what she really want and there’s nothing we can’t do” he tried to explain.

“And just because of that I have to accept it?” Steve asked.

“Steve, it isn’t your life. It’s hers. You knew that were would come a point where Kara would begin to make her own decisions, decisions that wouldn’t always please you. Your daughter has been doing what you have wanted for many years and if you two had paid more attention, you would have known that she was never very excited about going to college. But she didn’t say anything because her goal in life is to make you two happy” he confessed. “I don’t want her to put her life in danger constantly for something like that but she said it herself, whether we like it or not, she is going to do whatever she wants because she’s turning eighteen soon and I think the only thing we can do is teach her well so she doesn’t get killed.”

Steve clenched his fists tightly, angry. Of course Bucky was going to defend Kara, it was what he always did. Not matter how stupid was what Kara was doing, Bucky would always find a reason to support her.

“You should have told us” Anna accused Bucky. “You should have told us from the first minute you find out, James. You had no right to keep this to yourself. Not when it comes to _our_ daughter” she remarked harshly. “She is leaving, for God’s sake! She is gonna leave the minute she pass those tests.”

Bucky lowered his head in embarrassment. He didn’t know what to say and he agreed with Anna. He should have told them as soon as he found out, he shouldn’t have tried to dissuade Kara on his own.

“If you’re looking for a guilty party, that should be me” Natasha said as she walked through the kitchen door. “I was the one who’s been training Kara from the start. Maybe Bucky should have told you but Kara was far from changing her mind when he found out. It isn’t his fault. It’s mine so don’t put all this on him.”

Bucky looked at Natasha, surprised that she was defending him.

“Give her a chance before judging her. Let her do what she really wants. Let her be happy.”

It was clear that things hadn’t gone as planned for any of them, and that whole situation was going to make things really tense for some time. Only when Kara had locked herself in her room realized that after dropping the bomb, she had ruined Tony and Pepper’s moment. Their wedding would be celebrated in three days and she, in an attempt to hurt her father, had ruined what was to be a great day for two of the people she loved most in the world. She wished she could back and bite her tongue, but it was too late. She had already done it and there was no turning back.

When she woke up the next morning, Kara didn’t feel better. She hadn’t spoke to her father since he had tried to prove by force she wasn’t qualified to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Nor with her mother. Her mother worried her more than her father, who had no trouble showing his displeasure. But, her mother? Her mother was one of those who suffered in silence, without saying anything. And there was nothing Kara hated more than silence.

Kara was surprised when she found Evan in the gym, waiting for her. She hadn’t spoken to him since the fateful day he had predicted her future with Bucky. She never thought how one person could be right about another and although it hurt her to admit it, Evan had been right from the beginning.

“You put on quite a show yesterday, huh?” he said with a hoarse voice, a result of having slept little. Because he hadn’t been able to sleep either, not when Kara had declared she was going to leave the United States. Hay may have been hurt but he had never wanted her to leave God knew where because distance always ended up affecting relationships and their relationship was enough messed up already to add a thousand miles in the middle.

“Go big or go home, right?”

“What happened, Kara?” he asked. “And I don’t mean what happened yesterday, I mean what happened so you’re deciding to go somewhere else to start a new life away from your family.”

“You did it.”

“I went to study, Kara. And I never intended to stay. My life is here” he confessed, pointing around. “I know you and I know that if you leave, it’s to never come back. So, what happened?”

Kara’s silence only reassured Evan what he had known from the beginning. Kara was leaving because of Bucky. He felt the rage running through his body, he clenched his fists tightly and forced himself to mentally count to ten to calm himself down.

He’s not worth it.”

“Probably not but I can’t help it.”

“And do you think by putting a thousand miles between the two of you, you will be able to forget him?”

“I will never forget Bucky. I will never stop loving him.” Kara saw Evan’s face covered in pain when she confessed that. “But if I stay, I’ll be miserable. Like you said I would be. And although I won’t forget him, I know a thousand miles will help me, at least, feel a little better- And I think, after all, I deserve to feel good. All my life I’ve been pleasing others, sacrificing myself to make them feel better with themselves. It may not be the best for them, but it’s for me Evan. I have nothing to do here.”

“And what about me?”

Kara pressed her lips together and looked at him with sadness. She moved closer to him, raised a hand and gently caressed his cheek.

“You’ll be fine. And I’ll always carry a cell phone with me. You can always call me, whenever you want. We will still be friends even if I go to another universe, Evan. There are things that never change.”

Evan shook his head as a sad smile formed on his lips. Then he cupped Kara’s face and pressed his lips to hers. It was a short kiss that tasted as a goodbye.

“Yeah, some things never change” he said as he released her and left the gym.

On the other side of the Avenger’s base, specifically in the kitchen, Bucky was sat in one of the chairs that surrounded the kitchen island as he looked the cup of coffee that was in front of him. How did they get there? How had he let that whole situation reach that point? Kara hated him. Steve hated him. Even Anna hated him. He had screwed everything and there was no turning back. But with Kara leaving... Maybe things got better. Maybe his madness disappeared and his obsession with her vanished. Maybe he wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night thinking about her. Maybe he wouldn’t feel the need to go to her room, kidnap her and take her with him. Maybe he would forget the taste of her lips and the feeling of fullness that had filled his chest when they had kissed. He didn’t want to have her a thousand miles away but it was probably for the best. Since he couldn’t do it, he would let her do it.

“James, can we talk?”

Anna’s voice woke him from his thoughts. He tilted his head slightly, finding her in the middle of the kitchen with a steaming cup in her hands. Dark circles surrounded her green eyes and her face had aged for at least ten years that night.

“I’m sorry about what I said yesterday… I… Well… I needed to blame someone” she apologized, not even allowing him to tell her if they could talk or not. “I know you more than anyone wants the best for Kara. And deep down, I know that even if you had told us, we would not have been able to changer her mind.”

“Stubborn like her father” Bucky muttered with a sad smile on his lips.

“I hate she looks so much like Steve. I hate it with all my heart. I love Steve for what he is but I’ve never wanted the same for my daughter.”

“She’s gonna be okay, Anna. I hate to admit this but she’s really good.”

“But you understand I can’t let her go, can you?” she insisted. “She is seventeen and althought she is gonna turn eighteen in a few days, she is still too young to go to another country without us. She isn’t ready. She isn’t ready for this” she assured. “I can accept that she wants to be a part of S.H.I.E.L.D. but I’m not gonna let her go. You have to make her stay.”

“What?" he mumbled. “Me?”

“You’re the only one who can me her stay.”

“Anna, I don’t think--”

“I know you and Kara hadn’t been very well these last few weeks. I don’t know what has happened between the two of you or if your differences are due to this whole situation, but you’re the only one who can make my daughter stay in New York. Make her stay, James. Please.”

Bucky couldn’t deny that to Anna. He couldn’t do it because if he did it, he would have to explain why. And he supposed that, at that moment, Anna didn’t need that. She didn’t need to know that he _wanted_ Kara. So he got up from the chair and headed out of the kitchen to the gym, where he knew he would find her, because he had no choice.

Kara was sitting on a mat, lost in her thoughts, probably thinking of everything that had happened, perhaps even thinking of the words she’d said the day before. _I’ll be okay_ , she had told him. But it was clear she wasn’t okay. Kara was strong but that situation was tearing her apart as it was tearing him apart.

“Get up, Kara. Let’s train” Bucky said, waking her up.

Kara sighed loudly when she saw him but she didn’t reply. She got up from the mat, stretched her arms and legs and stood in a fighting position.

“Why are you here?” she asked at the same time she threw the first blow and Bucky dodged it.

Bucky threw some punches and dodged others before answering.

“You cannot leave” he let out with lack of emotion in his voice. it didn’t take Kara more than a few seconds to realize that this wasn’t what Bucky really wanted. Bucky wanted her gone and the further, the better. He was there because her parents had told him to make her stay because they thought he was the only one who could make her stay.

“Says who? You or my parents?”

Bucky stopped his movements and looked at Kara, a opportunity that Kara took to kick him in the leg, making him fall. Bucky grunted as his body hit the ground and Kara turned around.

“It’s okay, Bucky. You can go now. Message received. My parents want me to stay but you don’t. Go and tell them that you couldn’t change my mind.”

As she said that, Kara didn’t realize that Bucky has risen from the ground and was heading towards her. He grabbed her by the arm, forcing her to turn around and slammed her back against one of the walls, making her groan in pain.

“Never turn your back on your enemy,” he mumbled angrily, still pressing her body against the wall. “And you know that by going away, will be the best. For you.”

“Sure. For me” she spat as she tried to loosen his grip. “If you’re here is because a part of you wants me to stay. If you didn’t want me to stay you would have looked for an excuse or you would never have come here. You can’t bear me loving you. You can’t bear me hating you. You don’t want me to go. You don’t want me to stay. You’re a coward, Bucky. You’re a fucking coward” she said as she pushed him with force, finally breaking the jail he had created with his arms. “It doesn't matter how far I go, Bucky. There aren’t enough miles to make you forget what happened the other day. You are as fucked up as I am.”

Kara ended that conversation when she left the gym, not even worrying if Bucky had anything to add. For her, anything Bucky had to say wasn’t worth it. She wasn’t leaving for him, she was leaving for her.

Anna released her breath when she saw her daughter disappear down the hall. She covered her mouth with one of her hands as she felt the knot in her stomach growing bigger and bigger.

Kara had to leave.

As far away as possible from Bucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have a lot to say this time! I hope y'all enjoy this chapter. Thank you for your support, y'all amazing!


	15. Fifteen

 

_ “If you want something you never had, you have to do something you’ve never done.” _

 

* * *

 

 

Anna knew she shouldn’t make assumptions, because they might not be true. She also was aware that eavesdrop on conversations wasn’t the right thing to do but she simply had encountered the situation and couldn’t stop listening. They said that curiosity killed the cat and she was pretty sure if it wasn’t because she didn’t know exactly what was going on, her daughter’s words would have killed her.

She had tried to find a moment to talk to her daughter, to try to discover what was going on. However, whenever she tried, she ended up turning around because she didn’t know if she wanted to know the true. The real truth. She wasn’t sure she was ready to listen to her. What if it was what she really thought? What was she going to do? How could she solve something like that?

“I’ve been observing Kara,” Steve said one day as they got ready to go to sleep. Anna looked at him through the dresser mirror. They hadn’t talked much those days. Anna knew her husband too well to know it was best not to force conversations with him when he was angry. “I hate to admit it but… She’s good.”

Anna didn’t need to be told, she already knew she was good. She had been observing her daughter herself, quietly, in secret; although for different reasons.

“I think I could get used to the idea,” he confessed. “I’ll never like her going after villains but she’s going to do it whether we like it or not, so maybe it’s better if I accept it and support her. Maybe that way she change her mind about leaving New York.”

“She’s not happy here, Steve.”

“She’s not happy because she hasn’t been supported by this decision. She is not happy because she and Bucky had a stupid fight. Don’t you remember the first time those two fight? I still remember how Kara told me between sobs she wanted to die,” he remembered rolling his eyes. “We were too hard on Bucky the other day, I’m sure he didn’t give up on the first one. I’m sure that’s why he and Kara are angry at each other. If we can fix this… Maybe Kara would be happy again.”

Anna didn’t want to argue with her husband because, in fact, she hadn’t nothing to discuss. She didn’t know what was really happening and until she asked her daughter, she would not know. 

Kara had broken her routine that day. After the last training with Natasha, she had decided that by going ahead with that new idea, she needed to make a change of appearance. She wanted to get rid of old Kara’s life, the girl who did everything her parents said, the girl whose only goal was make her parents happy. It those weeks, months, she had changed and she needed to show it in more ways.

She didn’t go to the gym that day when she woke up. She went to the nearest hairdresser and told the hairdresser she didn’t want to recognize herself when she looked herself in the mirror. And the truth was that when she looked herself in the mirror, she didn’t recognize herself. Her hair had been cut to the level of her shoulders. Minus the tips of her hair that were still blonde, the rest of her hair was brown. It made her look more serious, more mature. She didn’t know if it was the best option thinking that Pepper and Tony’s wedding was the next day but she assumed neither of them would care too much about her hair. It was the least of their problems.

Kara was surprised when she found her father in the kitchen, with a cup of coffee in his hands and submerged in his thoughts. She was surprised because it had been a long time since she had met someone it wasn’t Natasha. Since she had confessed her real intentions, Kara had wandered around the facilities avoiding contact with any human being. It was easier that way. It seemed she had disappointed everyone, even the rest of the Avengers team. It was hard enough to know she had disappointed her parents, she didn’t want to deal with the rest.

Steve lifted his blue eyes and a lump formed in his throat when he saw an image of her daughter very different from the one he had in his mind. Involuntarily, his heart broke into a thousand pieces. Although for him she would always be his little girl, the Kara he had in front of him showed him she was no longer a kid, she had become a woman. Kara had grown against his will and there was nothing he could do about it.

“You… Kara…” Steve mumbled, sighting at the end. “You look beautiful.”

Kara made a hint of a smile, but happiness didn’t reach her eyes. She was still annoyed with her father.

“I’ve been looking for you. I wanted to talk to you,” Steve said.

“Dad, I don’t want to fight” she begged.

“Listen to me, please. I know I haven’t reacted very well to the news but you can’t blame me. When your daughter tells you she wants to do the same thing you do, which isn’t exactly an office job, then… You have a hard time accepting it. You’re my only daughter, Kara. You have to understand that this uncontrollable desire to protect you from all evil is always going to be there and the fact you want to do that with other people, putting your life in danger is… Is hard to accept.”

Steve got up from the stool where he was sitting and approached Kara. 

“But I’ve been watching you and the truth is… You have a gift. You are good. And even if I don’t agree with your idea of you becoming an agent, I can’t deny it makes me proud you want to be like me” he said with half a smile on his lips. “I love you very much, Kara. And I don’t want you to think I don’t want you to be happy because that’s the only thing I want in this life. So if you think college isn’t for you, if you think this is really what you want to be… You have my blessing.”

Kara felt a weight falling from her body. She pressed her lips together, trying not to shed any tear. Steve ended up occupying the space that separated them and hugged his daughter with all his strength, breaking the transparent wall that was keeping them apart. Kara hugged him back and let the tears fall down her face. 

They stayed like that for a long time, until Tony and Clint entered the kitchen arguing what was more effective: arrows or bullets. Steve and Kara broke the hug and she wiped the tears from her face.

“What do you think if when this whole wedding thing is over, you and me train for a bit?” Kara looked at her father in surprise. Steve laughed and shrugged. “I’m sure Natasha and Bucky have taught you well but…”

“But they aren’t Captain America, right?”

“Exactly,” he said making her laugh.

“I would love that, dad.”

“It’s a deal, then.”

Little by little, everything was going back to the way it was before. Kara knew her decisions had made irrefutable changes, such as her relationship with Evan or her relationship with Bucky, and even her relationship with her parents. But she couldn’t go back and, above all, she didn’t want to go back.

“Kara?” someone called her as she went towards the living room, where she knew she would find Pepper. Kara turned around, meeting her mother with her mouth open. “What…? Oh my God. You look so… Different.”

Probably, in situations like that one, people answered they were still the same. But Kara wasn’t the same so she said nothing.

“I’m proud of you, you know?” she confessed. “It may not look like it but I’m very proud of you.”

“Thank you, mom” she answered with a lump in her throat. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“I know, babe. I know” she said as she approached her. She took her hands and looked at her right in the eye. “I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

And, for a moment, Kara had the feeling her mother meant something else.

Bucky had lost track of time. He didn’t know how long he had been on the terrace, hidden from everyone, hidden from her. He had seen her enter the base just after she had cut her hair and had left him an uncontrollable desire to cup her face and kiss her as he told her how beautiful she was. But that thought had quickly made him feel like shit, so he went to buy all the alcohol he could find so it would help him to forget about her. But when he went to take the first sop, he knew that not even all the alcohol in the world could make him forget his feelings for her. He loved her and there was no turning back. He had fallen in love with his best friend’s daughter. He had fallen in love with Kara, the girl he had sworn to protect to matter what.

“You cannot hide your whole life,” Natasha said. He knew sooner or later someone would come and look for him. And at that moment he was glad it wasn’t Steve. He didn’t know how to look at him, he didn’t know who to act when he was around.

“I think I have an obsession, Natasha. I get up every night thinking about her, about going into her room, kidnap her and smash the faces of everyone who put in front of us,” he confessed with a broken voice and his eyes tearful.   


Natasha walked towards Bucky, sat down beside him and put an arm around his shoulders. Gently, she brought his head to her chest. It could have been that simple gesture or the affection with which Natasha did it but Bucky burst into tears as if he were a small child. That cry broke Natasha’s heart. Maybe if she hadn’t told him anything, if she hadn’t told him Kara was in love with him, they wouldn’t be in that situation. Although, perhaps, Bucky would have realized his feelings when he had discovered what he felt for Evan was jealousy, it wasn’t his protective instinct telling him that he wasn’t the right one for Kara.

“I may not agree with what you feel but  you deserve to be happy, Bucky. So… Do whatever you think you have to do. What’s meant to be will always find a way.”  
  
  


 

 

Kara had always liked weddings, she thought they were an event full of love and happiness. It was the moment when two people joined to start a new adventure as husband and wife. It was the moment when you showed in front of everyone that he or she was the person you couldn’t live without. Although Tony and Pepper had long proven that they were made for each other and they loved each other until the of time, that wedding was the perfect excuse to prove it again.

The ceremony was perfect, everything went as planned and, as everyone expected, it had been a beautiful wedding. Although she tried, Kara couldn’t help but wonder if she was going to have all that. After accepting that she couldn’t never forget Bucky, that she could never stop loving him, she found it hard to accept that she could find someone and love him with all that intensity. She hadn’t been able to do it with Evan, what assured her she could do it with someone else? It didn’t matter how far away she went or how far apart they were, Kara couldn’t forget how her body filled with an indescribable sensation when they kissed. Because she was sure that nothing and no one could make her feel that way again. Not if it wasn’t Bucky.

In her field of vision appeared a hand that extended towards her. When she raised her head, she found Bucky staring at her, waiting for her to accept that silent invitation to dance. A knot had formed in her stomach when she had seen him at the ceremony. He was dressed in black and, unintentionally, he had ended up being the most elegant and gorgeous that night.

Kara stood up but to Bucky’s surprise -or maybe not because he was aware that there was a 90% chance that she would reject that invitation- Kara took the skirt of her long red dress, and left the room where everyone was dancing and having some good time. He couldn’t say he didn’t deserve it because he did. Even if she had slapped him, he wouldn’t have complained. He also deserved it. After their last meeting at the gym, Kara, again, had set the record straight. And he, again, had avoided her. Two weeks. Two weeks hiding. To weeks praying to all the gods that please, please, made him forget her. Two weeks of full torture. Two weeks for Kara to hate him even more. But he had decided what he wanted to do. And he was sure of his decision. So he followed her outside and soon he found her leaning against the railing and looking at the large gardens that covered that place. It was night but the little lighthouses and starts illuminated the roads, making the scenery beautiful.

He heard her sight. She knew he was behind her. She knew he hadn’t giving up after that rejection.

“Bucky, I don’t wanna fight” she heard herself saying, remembering the words she’d told her father the day before. “Seriously, go away. I’m done.”

“I just need you to listen to me.”

“But here’s the thing, Bucky. I don’t want to listen to you. You don’t have anything else to say me. You said it all, remember?”

“Kara, please. Just listen. I’ve always felt alone, always. Even when I had your father and your mother. But deep down, I’ve always felt alone. Until you started to love me. I thought the best thing for you was to stop loving me because I thought I wasn’t good enough for you. And I did everything I had in my hands to push you away.”

Kara turned around slowly and stared at him

“But it was no use, Kara. It was no use because I can’t stop loving you.”

And, again, there it was. There it was that feeling running through her body, filling her, speeding her heart.

“Because when I’m with you, I feel different, I feel… better person. That’s why I can’t stop loving you. I can’t even if I try, even if I try with all of my heart. I can’t do it, you said it yourself. And if right now a group of chitauris come here and start killing us all and catch me hugging you… I wouldn’t care, Kara. I’m scared as hell to want you but here I am, wanting you anyway.”

Kara’s face was full of tears and though the speech had seemed precious to her, she didn’t know what to believe. Because it wasn’t the first time Bucky said white and then chose black.

“I cried a lot because of you, Bucky. I’m heartbroken because of you. And I promise you if you break my heart again, I--”

“I won’t. I promise. I don’t know what’s going to happen to us but I’m all in. No matter how difficult it gets or how desperately the world tries to tear us apart. I’m here.”

As you grow older, you look for very different things in people. But you always look for someone who will stand right by your side when the walls start crumbling. They are right there and, in that moment, you know they’ve got you. And that was what Bucky was saying to her so when he cupped her face and pressed his lips into hers, she didn’t say anything nor push him away. Because that was her, surrendering to him just like him he was doing with himself. 

And for the first time in their lives, they felt what they were doing was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Sorry for the long wait... The reason is still the same so I won't say the same over and over again. I hope you like this chapter because this has been absolutely torture to write (I mean, I love it but I had in mind a perfect thing and I don't know if this is near perfect). Anyway, I hope you like it. And as always, thank you so much for your patience and support!


	16. Pause

**This isn't a goodbye!**

That being said, I just wanted to write a few words about my actual situation. As I have said repeatedly, I'm really busy with work and uni. I thought I could do everything but truth be told, I'm a total mess. I don't have time for anything and I can't fit writing in my agenda right now. That doesn't mean I'm leaving this story because I'm not; it means that until I don't finish classes, I'm not going to be able to write a new chapter.

I didn't want to lie or make you wait without saying anything. I end classes in a couple of month more or less so, if everything goes as planned, I'm gonna be back sooner than expected.

I'm really sorry. I hope you understand!


End file.
